What is "normal" in bilingual children?

Tue Sep 30 14:00:21 UTC 2003

Following up on Jeroen's note, it is generally believed that if a bilingual
or trilingual child
has an underlying language  impairment, then it should be evident in all
languages -- research by Johanne
Paradis, Martha Crago, Mabel Rice, and myself provides some empirical
support for this belief,
at least in the case of French-English bilingual children in Montreal.

Given the likely validity of this claim, any diagnosis of impairment in the
case of bi/trilingual children should
be based on an examination of their home languages. A judgement based on
examination of one language only
could well reflect simply the child's stage of development in that language
given his or her exposure to the language.
Normal patterns of early language development, especially under reduced
exposure, could easily resemble what
is also taken to be patterns of impairment -- deletion of verbal
inflections in English, for example.

Our research suggests that the patterns of impairment that bilingual
children with language impairment are likely
to exhibit in each language are likely to resemble those exhibited by
monolingual children with impairment in the same languages .
It would follow from this that one should use the same kind of indicators
of impairment for monolingual children when examining a
bilingual child, taking into account exposure and stage of development of
course. And herein lies the rub, given that some bi/trilingual
chldren may have reduced or inconsistent exposure to one or more of their
languages, it can be difficult to know whether the child's
stage of development is normal or not. There is surprisingly little
research on language impairment in bilingual children, so much caution is
called for in all this.

Fred

At 03:26 PM 30/09/2003 +0200, Jeroen Aarssen wrote:
>Hello Marita,
>I agree with Annick that you have to consult as many people as possible to
>get a basic idea of the child's level in each of the three languages. The
>problem of course is that if you suspect that a child lags behind in one,
>two or even all three languages, you may wonder in what way professionals
>can be of any help: generally, only one of the languages (most often the
>child's second, or third, language) is assessed.
>Here in The Netherlands we are facing similar problems. When an immigrant
>minority child (say a Turkish child age 2) is detected (for instance during
>a regular check-up in a child health care center) as to have "some kind of"
>language problem, the parents are usually referred to a special speech and
>language center for a more thorough assessment. At that point the system
>fails, because standardized diagnostic tools are only available in Dutch (as
>a first language, I must add). Generally speaking, there's no assessment at
>all of the child's development in Turkish (I should probably add here:
>"Turkish as it is spoken in The Netherlands" because it appears that norms
>are slowly changing).
>Recently, a project started in which speech samples of Turkish are taken
>into account in the assessment of Turkish children in the Netherlands. In
>this project interpreters are trained to assist the clinical linguists or
>speech therapists in analyzing the speech samples. It is of vital importance
>that the interpreter knows what information is relevant for the person who
>makes the diagnosis. As far as I know, this procedure seems to work well,
>but it is too early to be implemented on a large scale. Moreover, Turkish is
>just one of the many minority languages in this country; the dilemma is
>whether we should train interpreter speaking other languages (Arabic?
>Tamazight? Hindi? Sranan? and so on).
>
>By the way, I am not surprised by the one year delay in German for this
>trilingual child, on the basis of the CDI-equivalent. Don't forget, it's
>just one part of the picture!
>
>Best regards,
>
>Jeroen Aarssen
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--------
>Dr. Jeroen Aarssen
>
>S A R D E S, Language Unit
>P.O. Box 2357 / 3500 GJ Utrecht / The Netherlands / (+31)30-2326230
>
>www.aarssen.net                     www.sardes.nl
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>--------
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>
>-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
>Van: Annick De Houwer [mailto:vhouwer at uia.ac.be]
>Verzonden: dinsdag 30 september 2003 15:20
>Aan: Marita Boehning; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
>Onderwerp: Re: What is "normal" in bilingual children?
>
>
>Hi Marita---
>
>The problem you raise is really a very big one. It requires a very complex
>answer, but I will here, at the great danger of oversimplifying things, just
>write a few things that can perhaps help.
>As Barbara Pearson and others have shown, you can't really judge a bilingual
>child's knowledge on the basis of just one language (let alone, a CDI i one
>language). By definition, a bilingual child knows a lot more than just one
>language. But the problem is: there are no norms available that can easily
>and reliably used for bilingual children. In the mean time: what to do?? My
>own experience as a researcher in child bilingualism leads me to say that
>one should get as much information from all the people in the child's
>environment - from all the normal 'carriers' of each of the child's
>languages, and hear what they have to say. If a child is functioning well in
>all the languages he/she is exposed to, according to the people who know the
>child, there is no cause for undue concern. If the child does OK in one
>language, and not so well in the other, the child most likely has fewer
>opportunities to learn/use the weaker language, and more intense input might
>be a good 'remedy'. (It is quite normal for young bilingual children to know
>each of their languages to different extents.) A real problem exists if the
>child does not function well in any language. Then professional help is
>called for - and more input in all the child's languages.
>I'm sure that other colleagues will also attempt to respond. In the mean
>time, I hope the above can be of some help.
>
>Best regards,
>
>
>Annick De Houwer
>
>
>****************
>Annick De Houwer, PhD
>Director, Research group Language, Communication and Socialization
>
>Dept. of Communication
>Campus Drie Eiken
>University of Antwerp
>Universiteitsplein 1
>B2610-Antwerpen
>Belgium
>
>tel +32-3_8202863
>fax +32-3-8202882
>email annick.dehouwer at ua.ac.be
>
>> Van: "Marita Boehning" <boehning at kronos.ling.uni-potsdam.de>
>> Datum: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 11:57:26 +0200
>> Aan: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
>> Onderwerp: What is "normal" in bilingual children?
>>
>> Dear members,
>> I was recently asked for advice by a mother of a 3;5 year-old son who
>> learns 3 languages as his mother tongue.  Turkish is the language coming
>> from the father, English from the mother and German from everywhere else
>> (as they live in Germany) and sometimes from the parents, too.
>> As I haven't dealt with much research on bilingualism, I have hardly any
>> idea, what is normal for a child who has to acquire 3 languages
>> simultaneously. I looked at the German equivalent of the CDI (ELFRA-2),
>> and it turns out his results equal a 2;5 year-old.
>> Would a year delay be "normal" for such a child or is intervention
>> indicated? And if intervention, then are there special approaches for
>> those children?
>>
>> Thanks for any help!
>>
>> Marita Boehning
>>
>>
>>
>> ******************************
>> Marita Boehning
>> Department of Linguistics
>> University of Potsdam
>> P.O. Box 60 15 53
>> D - 14415 Potsdam
>> Germany
>>
>> *****************************
>>
>>
>>
>
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