Conceptual Scoring of Lexical Organization in Bilingual Children With Language Impairment

Abstract

The aim was to evaluate conceptual scoring of lexical organization in bilingual children with language impairment (BLI) and to compare BLI performance with monolingual children with language impairment (MLI). Word associations were assessed in 15 BLI and 9 MLI children. BLI were assessed in Arabic and Swedish, MLI in Swedish only. A number of syntagmatic (semantic link, different word class) and paradigmatic associations (semantic link, same word class) were calculated. Arabic and Swedish scores were compared with a conceptual score (total number of concepts from both languages). For BLI, the paradigmatic conceptual score was significantly higher than single language scores, confirming the distribution of lexical knowledge across languages. The BLI group had significantly higher conceptual paradigmatic scores than the MLI group. Conceptual scoring may reduce the over-identification of language impairment (LI) and underestimation of lexical knowledge in bilingual populations.

Keywords

bilingualism language impairment vocabulary lexical organization conceptual scoring

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adesope

O. O.

Lavin

Thompson

Ungerleider

(2010). A systematic review and meta-analysis of the cognitive correlates of bilingualism. Review of Educational Research, 80, 207–245.

Bedore

L. M.

Peña

E. D.

Garcia

Cortez

(2005). Conceptual versus monolingual scoring: When does it make a difference? Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 36, 188–200.

Bialystok

Luk

Peets

K. F.

Yang

(2010). Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 525–531. doi:10.1017/s1366728909990423

Bishop

D. V. M.

(2006). What causes specific language impairment in children? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 217–221.

Campbell

G. L.

(1998). Concise compendium of the world’s languages. London, England: Routledge.

Cohen

(1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Core

Hoff

Rumiche

Senor

(2013). Total and conceptual vocabulary in Spanish-English bilinguals from 22 to 30 months: Implications for assessment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 1637–1649. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2013/11-0044)

Cronin

V. S.

(2002). The syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift and reading development. Journal of Child Language, 29, 189–204. doi:10.1017/s0305000901004998

Ebert

K. D.

Pham

Kohnert

(2014). Lexical profiles of bilingual children with primary language impairment. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 766–783. doi:10.1017/s1366728913000825

10.

Fitzpatrick

Playfoot

Wray

Wright

M. J.

(2013). Establishing the reliability of word association data for investigating individual and group differences. Applied Linguistics, 36, 23–50. doi:10.1093/applin/amt020

11.

Grosjean

(2008). Studying bilinguals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

12.

Holmström

Salameh

E.-K.

Nettelbladt

Dahlgren Sandberg

(2015). A descriptive study of lexical organisation in bilingual children with language impairment: Developmental changes. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Advance online publication. doi:10.3109/17549507.2015.1060524

13.

Johansson

Wahlstrand

(2010). Lexikal organisation hos barn i förskoleklass och tredje klass. En omarbetning av Kent och Rosanoffs associationstest [Lexical organization in children in preschool and third grade. An adaptation of the Kent and Rosanoff word association list]. Lund, Sweden: Lund University. Retrieved from http://www.lu.se/lup/publication/2862371

14.

Junker

D. A.

Stockman

I. J.

(2002). Expressive vocabulary of German-English bilingual toddlers. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 11, 381–394.

15.

Kent

G. H.

Rosanoff

A. J.

(1910). A study of association in insanity. American Journal of Insanity, 67(4), 37–96.

16.

Kirk

McCarthy

Kirk

(2000). Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (3rd ed.). Stockholm, Sweden: Psykologiförlaget AB.

17.

Korkman

Stenroos

Mickos

Westman

Ekholm

Byring

(2012). Does simultaneous bilingualism aggravate children’s specific language problems? Acta Paediatrica, 101, 946–952. doi:10.1111/j.1651-2227.2012.02733.x

18.

Mattheoudakis

(2011). A word-association study in Greek and the concept of the syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift. Journal of Greek Linguistics, 11(2), 167–197.

19.

Meara

(1996). The dimensions of lexical competence. In Brown

Malmkjaer

Williams

(Eds.), Performance and competence in second language acquisition (pp. 33–53). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

20.

Mikoczy

Nyman

(2008). Lexikal förmåga hos flerspråkiga svensk-arabiska barn i skolår 4. En undersökning med PPVT-III och Kent & Rosanoffs associationstest [Lexical ability in bilingual Swedish-Arabic children in grade 4. Assessed with PPVT-III and the Kent & Rosanoff word association list]. Lund, Sweden: Lund University. Retrieved from http://www.lu.se/lup/publication/2862694

21.

Namei

(2002). The bilingual lexicon from a developmental perspective: A word association study of Persian-Swedish bilinguals. Stockholm, Sweden: Centre for Research on Bilingualism.

22.

Namei

(2004). Bilingual lexical development: A Persian-Swedish word association study. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14, 363–388. doi:10.1111/j.1473-4192.2004.00070.x

23.

Nayeb

Wallby

Westerlund

Salameh

E.-K.

Sarkadi

(2014). Child healthcare nurses believe that bilingual children show slower language development, simplify screening procedures and delay referrals. Acta Paediatrica, 104, 198–205. doi:10.1111/apa.12834

24.

Nelson

(1977). The syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift revisited: A review of research and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 93–116.

25.

Nettelbladt

Radeborg

Sahlén

(2003). Svenska CCC. Enkät och manual [Swedish CCC. Questionnaire and manual]. Lund, Sweden: Department of Logopedics, Phoniatrics and Audiology, Lund University.

26.

Nissen

H. B.

Henriksen

(2006). Word class influence on word association test results. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 16, 389–408.

27.

Oller

D. K.

Eilers

R. E.

(Eds.). (2002). Language and literacy in bilingual children. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

28.

Oller

D. K.

Pearson

B. Z.

Cobo-Lewis

A. B.

(2007). Profile effects in early bilingual language and literacy. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 191–230. doi:10.1017/S0142716407070117

29.

Olsson

Salameh

E.-K.

Hindemith Herbing

Matson

Lundgren

Wissman

E.-L.

(2012). Skolordförråd. Screening för flerspråkiga barn [School vocabulary. Screening for bilingual children]. Manuscript submitted for publication.

30.

Ordóñez

C. L.

Carlo

M. S.

Snow

C. E.

McLaughlin

(2002). Depth and breadth of vocabulary in two languages: Which vocabulary skills transfer? Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 719–728. doi:10.1037//0022-0663.94.4.719

31.

Paradis

(2010). Response to commentaries on the interface between bilingual development and specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 31, 345–362. doi:10.1017/s0142716409990531

32.

Paradis

Crago

Genesee

Rice

(2003). French-English bilingual children with SLI: How do they compare with their monolingual peers? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 113–127.

33.

Patterson

J. L.

(1998). Expressive vocabulary development and word combinations of Spanish-English bilingual toddlers. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 7(4), 46–56.

34.

Pearson

B. Z.

Fernandez

Oller

D. K.

(1993). Lexical development in bilingual infants and toddlers: Comparison to monolingual norms. Language Learning, 43, 93–120.

35.

Peña

E. D.

Bedore

L. M.

Fiestas

(2013). Development of bilingual semantic norms: Can two be one. In Mueller Gathercole

(Ed.), Solutions for the assessment of bilinguals (pp. 103–124). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

36.

Peña

E. D.

Bedore

L. M.

Zlatic-Giunta

(2002). Category-generation performance of bilingual children: The influence of condition, category, and language. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 938–947. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2002/076)

37.

Pienemann

Håkansson

(1999). A unified approach towards the development of Swedish as L2: A processability account. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 383–420.

38.

Raven

J. C.

Court

J. H.

Raven

(1986). Raven’s progressive matrices and Raven’s coloured matrices. London, England: HK Lewis.

39.

Restrepo

M. A.

Morgan

G. P.

Thompson

M. S.

(2013). The efficacy of a vocabulary intervention for dual-language learners with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 748–765. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0173)

40.

Salameh

E. K.

(2003). Language impairment in Swedish bilingual children: Epidemiological and linguistic studies (Doctoralthesis). Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

41.

Salameh

E. K.

(2015). GrUS - Grammatisk bedömning av svenska som andraspråk [GrUS—Grammatical assessment of Swedish as a second language]. Helsingborg, Sweden: Nypon förlag.

42.

Salameh

E. K.

Nettelbladt

(2013). Learning in two languages. Consequences for lexical development in Swedish and Arabic. In Flyman Mattsson

Norrby

(Eds.), Language acquisition and use in multilingual contexts theory and practice (pp. 160–170). Lund, Sweden: Lund University.

43.

Sheng

Bedore

L. M.

Peña

E. D.

Taliancich-Klinger

(2013). Semantic convergence in Spanish-English bilingual children with primary language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 766–777. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0271)

44.

Sheng

McGregor

K. K.

Marian

(2006). Lexical-semantic organization in bilingual children: Evidence from a repeated word association task. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 572–587. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2006/041)

45.

Sheng

Peña

E. D.

Bedore

L. M.

Fiestas

C. E.

(2012). Semantic deficits in Spanish-English bilingual children with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 1–15. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0254)

46.

Statistics Sweden. (2013). Statistics 2013, Education and Research. Stockholm, Sweden. Retrieved from http://www.scb.se/statistik/_publikationer/uf0524_2012a01_br_00_uf01br1201.pdf

47.

Thordardottir

(2015). The relationship between bilingual exposure and morphosyntactic development. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17, 97–114.

48.

Thordardottir

Rothenberg

Rivard

M.-E.

Naves

(2006). Bilingual assessment: Can overall proficiency be estimated from separate measurement of two languages? Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 4(1), 1–21. doi:10.1080/14769670500215647

49.

Verhoeven

Steenge

van Balkom

(2011). Verb morphology as clinical marker of specific language impairment: Evidence from first and second language learners. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 32, 1186–1193. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.01.001

50.

Versteegh

(2001). The Arabic language. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.

51.

Windsor

Kohnert

(2004). The search for common ground: Part I. Lexical performance by linguistically diverse learners. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 877–890. doi:10.1044/1092-4388(2004/065)