A COMPARISON OF THE ORAL LANGUAGE SKILLS OF LANGUAGE-IMPAIRED AND NORMALLY DEVELOPING SPANISH-ENGLISH BILINGUAL CHILDREN

The major issue in bilingual language assessments is to determine whether speech-language behaviors observed are normal, developmental behaviors or manifestations of a speech-language disorder. In order to interpret the behavior, the examiner needs to know what constitutes normal language development for a bilingual child. The purposes of the dissertation were, therefore, two-fold: (1) to analyze the phonological and morphosyntactical patterns of the oral language of bilingual language-impaired and normally developing children to determine what are the major definable differences in the form of disordered speech and language in bilingual children and (2) to formulate hypotheses about how these differences can be used to assist in the identification of speech-language disorders in bilingual children.;The data were subjected to both statistical and error and item analyses. The results of the analyses reflected quantitative but few qualitative differences in the use of form by the normally developing and the language-impaired subjects in either language in both conversational speech and on formal tests. The final chapter discusses the implications of the findings and proposes a more broadly based framework for assessment of language disorders in bilingual children.;The subjects consisted of two groups of six children each, ages 5;6 to 6;6 enrolled in bilingual kindergarten classrooms in a large metropolitan school district. All of the children were bilingual Spanish/English from low socio-economic status families. Six had been identified as language-impaired and six were children whose speech-language development had never been questioned. The protocol used for collecting the data consisted of two procedures: (a) elicitation of a spontaneous language sample, and (b) administration of formal tests of phonology, morphology, and syntax.