Lexical profiles of bilingual children with primary language impairment.

This study used lexical tasks to examine associations between languages, tasks, and age in bilingual children with primary language impairment. Participants (n = 41, mean age 8;8 years) lived in the United States, spoke primarily Spanish (L1) at home and English (L2) at school, and were identified with moderate to severe impairments in both languages. A total of eight tasks (four in each language) measured breadth of vocabulary knowledge (receptive and expressive vocabulary) and aspects of lexical processing (rapid automatic naming and nonword repetition).

Three treatments for bilingual children with primary language impairment: examining cross-linguistic and cross-domain effects.

Purpose: This study examines the absolute and relative effects of 3 different treatment programs for school-age bilingual children with primary or specific language impairment (PLI). It serves to expand the evidence base on which service providers can base treatment decisions. It also explores hypothesized relations between languages and cognition in bilinguals with PLI.

A longitudinal study of lexical development in children learning Vietnamese and English.

This longitudinal study modeled lexical development among children who spoke Vietnamese as a first language (L1) and English as a second language (L2). Participants (n = 33, initial mean age of 7.3 years) completed a total of eight tasks (four in each language) that measured vocabulary knowledge and lexical processing at four yearly time points.

Nonlinguistic cognitive treatment for bilingual children with primary language impairment.

Substantial evidence points to the presence of subtle weaknesses in the nonlinguistic cognitive processing skills of children with primary (or specific) language impairment (PLI). It is possible that these weaknesses contribute to the language learning difficulties that characterize PLI, and that treating them can improve language skills. To test this premise, we treated two nonlinguistic cognitive processing skills, processing speed and sustained selective attention, in two Spanish-English bilingual children with PLI.

Is there a cognate advantage for typically developing Spanish-speaking English-language learners?

Purpose: Cross-linguistic cognates are words that share form and meaning in two languages (e.g., helicopter-helicóptero); translation equivalents are words that share meaning but not form (e.

Sustained attention in children with primary language impairment: a meta-analysis.

Purpose: This study provides a meta-analysis of the difference between children with primary or specific language impairment (LI) and their typically developing peers on tasks of sustained attention. The meta-analysis seeks to determine whether children with LI demonstrate subclinical deficits in sustained attention and, if so, under what conditions.

Method: Articles that reported empirical data from the performance of children with LI, in comparison to typically developing peers, on a task assessing sustained attention were considered for inclusion.

Addressing clinician-client mismatch: a preliminary intervention study with a bilingual Vietnamese-English preschooler.

Purpose: This project examined receptive vocabulary treatment outcomes in the two languages of a bilingual preschooler with moderate to severe language impairment.

Method: A series of single-subject experimental designs was used to compare English-only (EO) and bilingual (BI) approaches to receptive vocabulary treatment. The participant, Nam, was a boy age 3;11 (years;months) who was learning Vietnamese as a first language at home and English in his early childhood education program.

Cross-language nonword repetition by bilingual and monolingual children.

Purpose: Identifying children with primary or specific language impairment (LI) in languages other than English continues to present a diagnostic challenge. This study examined the utility of English and Spanish nonword repetition (NWR) to identify children known to have LI.

Method: Participants were 4 groups of school-age children (N = 187).

Sentence interpretation by typically developing Vietnamese-English bilingual children.

We examined developing bilinguals' use of animacy and word order cues during sentence interpretation tasks administered in each of their languages. Participants were 6- to 8-year-old children who learned Vietnamese as a first language and English as a second language ( = 23). Participants listened to simple sentences and identified the agent or "doer" of the action.

Lexical and grammatical associations in sequential bilingual preschoolers.

Purpose: The authors investigated potential relationships between traditional linguistic domains (words, grammar) in the first (L1) and second (L2) languages of young sequential bilingual preschool children.

Method: Participants were 19 children, ages 2;11 (years;months) to 5;2 (M = 4;3) who began learning Hmong as the L1 from birth and English as the L2 during early childhood. Measures were the number of different words (NDW) and mean length of utterance (MLU) produced during a story retell task and scores on picture identification, an independent measure of receptive vocabulary.

Bilingual children with primary language impairment: issues, evidence and implications for clinical actions.

Unlabelled: A clear understanding of how to best provide clinical serves to bilingual children with suspected or confirmed primary language impairment (PLI) is predicated on understanding typical development in dual-language learners as well as the PLI profile. This article reviews general characteristics of children learning two languages, including three that challenge the diagnosis and treatment of PLI; uneven distribution of abilities in the child's two languages, cross-linguistic associations within bilingual learners, and individual variation in response to similar social circumstances. The diagnostic category of PLI (also referred to in the literature as specific language impairment or SLI) is described with attention to how language impairment, in the face of otherwise typical development, manifests in children learning two languages.

Common factors in speech-language treatment: an exploratory study of effective clinicians.

Unlabelled: Research in related fields that employ behavioral interventions indicates that factors common to treatment programs may be more important to successful outcomes than specific components of a treatment. Applying this concept to speech-language pathology, we investigated one hypothesized "common factor," namely, the clinician who implements treatment. Data were collected from limited samples of speech-language clinicians in two surveys.

Bilingual children and communication disorders: a 30-year research retrospective.

We present a review of the empirical literature at the intersection of bilingualism and pediatric communication disorders. A computer search of six electronic databases was done to identify studies published in English since 1950 that directly investigated some aspect of speech, language, or cognitive performance in developing bilinguals and children with communication impairments. The computer search yielded 116 non-duplicated articles, the first published in 1978.

Cross-language generalization following treatment in bilingual speakers with aphasia: a review.

The focus of this article is on the potential transfer or generalization of positive effects from a treated to an untreated language in bilingual or multilingual individuals with primary acquired aphasia. Twelve studies are reviewed: All were previously published in English in peer-reviewed journals. Half of these studies failed to account for spontaneous recovery.

Fast mapping by bilingual preschool children.

Previous studies show that young monolingual children's ability to 'fast map' new word forms is closely associated with both their age and existing vocabulary knowledge. In this study we investigate potential relationships between age, fast mapping skills and existing vocabulary knowledge in both languages of developing bilingual preschool children. Participants were twenty-six typically developing children, ages 3 ; 0 to 5 ; 3.

Corpora of Vietnamese texts: lexical effects of intended audience and publication place.

This article has two primary aims. The first is to introduce a new Vietnamese text-based corpus. The Corpora of Vietnamese Texts (CVT; Tang, 2006a) consists of approximately 1 million words drawn from newspapers and children's literature, and is available online at www.

Primary or "specific" language impairment and children learning a second language.

We review empirical findings from children with primary or "specific" language impairment (PLI) and children who learn a single language from birth (L1) and a second language (L2) beginning in childhood. The PLI profile is presented in terms of both language and nonlinguistic features. The discussion of L2 learners emphasizes variable patterns of growth and skill distribution in L1 and L2 which complicate the identification of PLI in linguistically diverse learners.

A corpus-based analysis of Vietnamese 'classifiers' and .

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of two common Vietnamese 'classifiers,' (animacy) and (inanimacy) using language corpora data of over one million words. This information may contribute to an ongoing debate of whether Vietnamese 'classifiers' are a distinct word class or a subclass of nouns. Frequency and distributions were calculated using computer software.

Young L2 learners' performance on a novel morpheme task.

The teaching of an invented language rule has been proposed as a possible non-biased, language-independent assessment technique useful in differentiating young L2 learners with specific language impairment from their typically developing peers. The current study explores these notions by testing typically developing sequential bilingual children's ability to learn an invented language rule in either L1 (Spanish) or L2 (English). Participants were 20 children, age 3:6-5:8, who attended a Head Start programme.

Counting span and the identification of primary language impairment.

Background: In recent research, verbal working memory has been proposed as a primary area of deficit for children with language impairment (LI), and therefore a source of more sensitive assessment measures. In addition, research on non-linguistic tasks has suggested that children with LI may have deficits that extend beyond the linguistic domain. These dual lines of research can be connected to the drive for non-biased assessment tasks for children with diverse language learning experiences (such as bilingual children), because linguistic tasks may be intrinsically biased against such children.

Synthesized speech intelligibility among native speakers and non-native speakers of English.

Using synthesized and digitized speech in electronic communication devices may greatly benefit individuals who cannot produce intelligible speech. However, multiple investigations have demonstrated that synthesized speech is not always sufficiently intelligible for its listeners. Listening to synthesized speech may be particularly problematic for listeners for whom English is a second language.

Action naming in Spanish and English by sequential bilingual children and adolescents.

Purpose: Verb processing in early sequential Spanish-English bilinguals was investigated. Primary study goals were to identify potential patterns of development in relative levels of verb processing efficiency in a 1st (L1) and 2nd (L2) language and to investigate factors influencing cognitive control of the dual-language system in developing bilinguals.

Method: Four age groups of early sequential Spanish-English bilinguals (5-7 years, 8-10 years, 11-13 years, and 14-16 years of age) named action pictures in single-language (Spanish or English) and mixed-language (alternating Spanish and English) conditions.