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.
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Hebrew
monolinguals with SLI
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Bilingual
English – Hebrew and Russian – Hebrew typically developing children
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Bilingual English
– Hebrew and Russian – Hebrew BISLI
children
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Vocabulary
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Verb inflection difficulties.
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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.
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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.
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Verb inflections, syntactic structure
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In a sentence repetition task, SLI
monolinguals frequently omit prepositions ("my older brother listens loud
music").
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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.
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Using prepositions (like "on"; "at")
(I personally have lots of troubles with
prepositions in English…)
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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.
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This population had correct referencing skills.
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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.
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Referencing
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