Abstract
Purpose: Bilingual children are often diagnosed with language impairment, although they may simply have fewer opportunities to learn English than English-speaking monolingual children. This study examined whether dynamic assessment (DA) of word learning skills is an effective method for identifying bilingual children with primary language impairment (PLI). Method: Fifteen 4- and 5-year-old predominantly Spanishspeaking children with typical language development (TLD) and 13 with PLI each participated in a 30- to 40-min session of DA of word learning skills following a pretest-teach-posttest design. Results: Results indicated that TLD children made associations between the phonological and semantic representations of the new words faster than children with PLI did, showing greater modifiability. Further, a combination of word learning in the receptive modality and the Learning Strategies Checklist (Lidz, 1991; Peña, 1993) provided the best accuracy in identifying PLI in these children. Conclusion: Findings suggest that a brief DA is a promising method for accurately differentiating children with TLD from children with PLI.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 81-96 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Language, speech, and hearing services in schools |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1 2012 |
Keywords
- Bilingual
- Dynamic assessment
- Language impairment
- Word learning
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
- Speech and Hearing