The link between bilingual children and language impairment
This topic is of particular interest due to the occurrence of mistaken diagnoses of specific language impairment, in the context of a lack of reliable assessment tools for bilinguals. The EU-funded DISCOURSE BISLI (Discourse coherence in bilingualism and SLI) project studied language development of bilingual (Russian-German and Russian-Dutch) children and compared it to monolingual children with and without typical language development. Project partners examined language development of native Russian three- to eight-year-old children learning two languages (Dutch/German and Russian) either from birth or from around age three. Their performance was compared to that of age-matched monolingual children (both typically developing and language impaired). Spoken data analysis and eye-tracking techniques revealed several key findings. There is a way to differentiate between bilinguals that develop normally and children that have language impairments. They have very different language processing profiles, even though language production may be similar. Another finding shows that using speech production errors to determine whether a bilingual child suffers from a language disorder or not is very difficult to impossible. This is consistent with the observation that bilingual children are often misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed for language impairment. Eye-tracking results reveal that children with language impairment make errors in their speech because they have difficulty learning the semantics and the grammar of discourse connectors. By contrast, normal bilinguals make errors under the influence of their dominant language, but they do know the correct word meanings and grammar rules. One more crucial finding shows that bilingualism does not necessarily lead to problems and language delays. Bilingual children become particularly successful if they learn both languages from birth, although their minority language (the one not spoken in the country of residence) will usually be weaker than their dominant language. DISCOURSE BISLI differentiated between typically developing bilingual children and children with language impairment. Ultimately, this should help to bring down the numbers of bilingual individuals receiving unnecessary speech therapy.
Keywords
Bilingual children, specific language impairment, DISCOURSE BISLI, discourse coherence, bilingualism
