As
the
culturally
and
linguistically
diverse
(CLD)
population of the
United
States
continues
to
increase
dramatically,
speech-language
pathologists
(SLPs)
face
the
challenge
how
best
to
serve
children
whose
primary
language
is
not
English.
One
way of overcoming
the
bilingual
communication
barrier
is for
bilingual
children
to
alternate
their
two
languages
(i.e.,
code
switching and
code
mixing).
Frequently,
SLPs
have
limited
understanding of the
functions
and
patterns
of
language
alternation
in
bilingual
children.
Language
alternation
is
a
normal,
common,
and important aspect of bilingualism. This investigation aims to answer several basic questions regarding normal code mixing behaviors in a young bilingual child, namely, (a) What syntactic elements are mixed most frequently in conversational discourse in a young bilingual child? and (b) What information can be applied to a diagnostic or therapeutic situation? Spontaneous speech samples of a bilingual Spanish-English speaking child were collected during a period of 17 months. The child was between the ages of 6 and 8 years. Descriptive analysis of the data revealed percentages and rank ordering of syntactic elements switched in the longitudinal language samples obtained. Specific recommendations for using code mixing in therapy for bilingual and monolingual speech-language pathologists are given.
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