Specific language impairment in bilinguals

This information is taken from two sources in Hebrew, by Prof. Sharon Armon Lotem of Bar Ilan University in Israel.

Armon Lotem notes that 20% of children who began first grade in the mainstream education in 2004 came from a home in which at least one of the parents is not a native Hebrew speaker.  This is not surprising due to the fact that Israel absorbed a million jews from the former Soviet Union in the 1990's, and continues to absorb thousands of jews from various countries each year (26500 in 2014).  Israel's entire population was 8.3 million people in April 2015. This highlights the importance of discussing bilingual assessment issues.

First, a few definitions:

Simultaneous bilingualism:  both languages are acquired together.  A simultaneous bilingual child is raised in a bilingual home in which each parent speaks his native language.  Simultaneous bilingualism can also occur when the home is monolingual, the home language is different from the mainstream language, and the child is educated from a very early age in settings where the mainstream language is spoken.  These children begin to use both languages simultaneously.

Sequential bilingualism – one of the languages is acquired after the other.  The second language is learned not as a native language but a foreign language.

In this post, "an English – Hebrew speaker" means that the child's native language is English and second language is Hebrew (the first language is written first). 

SLI  - Specific Language Impairment  - a child with at least average IQ and poor linguistic ability (one standard deviation or more below the mean, or more than 12 month lower than expected for his age). The poor linguistic ability is not due to hearing impairment, emotional or behavioral difficulties, a proven neurological impairment, autism or severe articulation difficulties.  Seven to ten percent of the population (monolingual and bilingual) has SLI.

 BISLI – BILINGUAL SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT – children with poor linguistic ability in both languages.

 Anaphoric reference occurs when the writer refers back to someone or something that has been previously identified, to avoid repetition. Some examples: replacing "the taxi driver" with the pronoun "he" or "two girls" with "they".

  In general:

·         Monolingual tests in the second language are not suitable for the assessment of sequential bilinguals with less than four years of exposure to the second language.  Iluz – Cohen (2008) found that when bilinguals learning in special education kindergartens were reassessed in both languages, only five of 14 children were indeed diagnosed with SLI.

·         Using words of one language in the other language (code switching) is normal and is not an indication for SLI.

·         Research does not justify recommending that a BISLI child discontinue using one of the languages.  A developmental verbal delay is a marker for SLI and not a result of bilingualism.  Language intervention is more efficient when it's done in both languages.  Progress in one language facilitates progress in the other language.

·         For a bilingual child, the use of both languages is recommended both at home and at school.  Bilingualism has linguistic and cognitive advantages when it's balanced (the proficiency in both languages is more or less the same).

Developmental  knowledge and research findings from studies done with 5-7 year old children tested in Hebrew and compared to norms of monolingual Hebrew speakers.

Hebrew monolinguals with SLI	Bilingual English – Hebrew and Russian – Hebrew typically developing children	Bilingual  English – Hebrew and Russian – Hebrew BISLI children
Twenty percent of all children (monolingual and bilingual) have a vocabulary of less than 50 words by the age of 2.  Half the children close the gap by the age of 3.  The other half is diagnosed as SLI.  This is why having a vocabulary of less than 50 words by the age of 2 indicates the possibility of SLI.  In older ages, SLI monolinguals have poorer vocabulary than typically developing monolinguals.	This population has poorer vocabulary compared to monolinguals in each language, but an adequate vocabulary in both languages together.     The vocabulary of bilinguals contains representations of both languages and it's important to assess it in both languages.  Assessing vocabulary only in one  language can wrongly lead to SLI diagnosis.	Less than 50 words in both languages together at the age of 2 indicates  the possibility of SLI.  Older children  have  poor vocabulary in both languages together as well.	Vocabulary
Verb inflection difficulties.	A slight delay in the use of verb inflections (in simultaneous bilinguals).  The transfer of syntactic structures between languages (mainly in sequential bilingualism).   For instance, "the" does not exist in Russian, so the omission of "the" by a Russian – Hebrew bilingual when he speaks Hebrew is not an indication for SLI. Caution is needed in the interpretation of syntax errors in Hebrew by bilinguals.  If the sentence's syntax is correct in the native language, the child is not SLI.  Bilingual English – Hebrew or Russian – Hebrew children were able to correctly repeat complex sentences and dependent clauses in Hebrew.  Simultaneous bilinguals show better ability than typically developing monolinguals to tell stories.  They  use more descriptions and express  personal attitudes.  They  have better semantic development and a better understanding of metaphors  and double meanings than typically developing monolinguals.  These findings refer to children from average to high SES who are exposed to Hebrew for at least 50% of the time.  The amount and quality of exposure to Hebrew play a significant role.	Difficulties with verb inflections in the past tense, which  are similar to difficulties of SLI monolinguals.  This group also has difficulties  with verb inflections in the present tense, but performs better than SLI monolinguals in this task.  This means that bilingualism does not exacerbate the difficulties in verb inflections compared to monolingualism, and sometimes it even helps in Hebrew verb inflections. A lack of simple sentences by the age of three, at least in one of the languages, indicates the possibility of SLI.  A lack of complex sentences by the age of 3;6 at least in one of the languages indicates the possibility of SLI.	Verb inflections, syntactic structure
In a sentence repetition task, SLI monolinguals frequently omit  prepositions   ("my older brother listens loud music").		Monolingual SLI children omitted five times more prepositions   than English – Hebrew BISLI children.  Bilingualism doesn't exacerbate the difficulty in using prepositions   compared to SLI monolinguals.  It's possible that knowing English may have increased awareness of the need for prepositions.	Using prepositions (like "on"; "at") (I personally have lots of troubles with prepositions in English…)
Significant referencing errors.  For example, this is a story (according to a series of drawings) told by an SLI Hebrew monolingual child:  "Mom cooked food for her children and ate and ate.  Then came a fly.  Then  he got angry, than they put cookies in her tail, then they put something hot in her hair, then they cleaned her."  Who ate? Who put cookies?  To whom? Who put things in the hair? Who cleaned? The subject is missing in all of these sentences.  It's unclear who we are talking about.   It's also unclear to whom "he" "they" "her" refer.  This style is typical for SLI children.	This population had correct referencing skills.	English – Hebrew BILSI children have better referencing abilities than SLI Hebrew monolinguals.  SLI Hebrew monolinguals have three times as many mistakes as English – Hebrew BILSI children in story telling (according to drawings) in Hebrew.  In Hebrew it's possible to drop the sentence's subject, something that is not possible in English (you can't say "went"; you have to say "I went").   Thus, English – Hebrew BILSI children omit the subject less (when it's not correct to omit it).  English – Hebrew bilingualism helps SLI children.	Referencing