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Research in Developmental Disabilities 32 (2011) 1798–1807

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Research in Developmental Disabilities

Assessment of second language proficiency in bilingual children withspecific language impairment: A clinical perspective

Ludo Verhoeven *, Judit Steenge, Marjolijn van Weerdenburg, Hans van Balkom

Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:

Received 11 March 2011

Accepted 13 March 2011

Available online 8 May 2011

Keywords:

Specific language impairment

Second language

Assessment

A B S T R A C T

The goal of this study was to examine to what extent the conditions of restricted input of

L2 and SLI have an additive impact on language acquisition. Therefore, the Dutch language

achievement of 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old bilingual children with SLI was compared with that

of typically developing monolingual Dutch children, typically developing bilingual

children, and monolingual Dutch children with SLI. Assuming that speaking a language in

varying environments involves distinct subskills that can be acquired in differential

patterns, the achievement of phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic and textual abilities

were assessed separately. For each of these abilities, it was determined to what extent the

conditions of restricted input (first vs. second language) and language deficit (typically

developing vs. SLI) cause stagnation or a delay in language acquisition. Bilingual children

with SLI perform at a lower level than the other groups in almost all aspects of

achievement in Dutch. For language tasks related to the mental lexicon and grammar, an

additional disadvantage was evidenced as a result of the combination of learning Dutch as

second language and having SLI.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are diagnosed as exhibiting a significant deficit in the production and/orcomprehension of language that cannot be explained by general cognitive impairment, sensory-motor deficits, neurologicaldisorder, psychiatric diagnosis or a general lack of exposure to language (Leonard, 1998). Children with SLI have limitedlinguistic ability, their language development is delayed. Exclusion criteria are often used to identify this population. It isestimated that 6% of children in the general population have SLI, although there is considerable heterogeneity among thelanguage profiles of these children (Law, Boyle, Harris, Harkness, & Nye, 1998; Van Weerdenburg, Verhoeven, & van Balkom,2006). Prominent problems among children with SLI are in the areas of morpho-syntax, phonology, and lexicon (Bishop,1997). Firstly, morpho-syntactic difficulties have most extensively been investigated in different languages (see Leonard,2000). A common problem of children with SLI that is seen in different languages concerns verb morphology. Because manychildren with SLI have morpho-syntactic problems, it is sometimes referred to as typical SLI (e.g., Bishop, 2004). Secondly,many studies have focused on phonological abilities of children with SLI. Such research showed for example that childrenwith SLI cannot discriminate and process sounds adequately (Bishop, 1997). In addition, children with SLI have been shownto have expressive phonological problems, often referred to as verbal dyspraxia (Bishop, 2004; Rapin, 1996). Finally, childrenwith SLI have been shown to exhibit lexical problems, such as difficulties in acquiring new words and in word finding. Mostlexical problems, however, co-occur with syntactical difficulties (see Leonard & Deevy, 2004).

* Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Verhoeven).

0891-4222/$ – see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.03.010

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L. Verhoeven et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 32 (2011) 1798–1807 1799

The language acquisition of children with SLI is especially at risk for those who belong to minority groups. Most childrenfrom ethnic minorities in the Netherlands are confronted with the task of communicating in the dominant language of amajority environment in order to cope with daily life. Usually, this language is learned as a second language (L2). Such acontext is called a submersion context. The language situation of most minority children can be characterized as emergentbilingualism with the first language being built up during the preschool years as the result of linguistic input in L1-speakinghomes and the second language later coming into play via L2 playmates and the school. It can thus be assumed that childrenreceiving restricted L2 input experience difficulty in obtaining native-like proficiency levels in their second language. This iswhat indeed has been found in the literature with a great deal of individual variation being reported (August & Shanahan,2006; Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004).

The problem of L2 acquisition in bilingual children with SLI has been addressed in only a few studies (Schiff-Myers, 1992).Bruck (1982) explored the cognitive and linguistic abilities of children with language impairment attending Frenchimmersion programmes, in which English speaking children followed education in French as their second language. Aftertwo years of instruction in a second language, she found their L1 cognitive and linguistic skills to be at a similar level to thoseof a comparable group of children with SLI who were educated in their first language. The second language proficiency levels,however, were below those of children without SLI in French immersion programmes. Restrepo (1998) made an attempt toidentify a set of measures discriminating predominantly Spanish-speaking children (learning English as a second language)with typical language development and with SLI. Measures of vocabulary, bound-morpheme learning skills and languageform were administered, along with parent questionnaires on the child’s language achievement and family history of speechand language problems. The following measures turned out to discriminate between bilingual children with and without SLI:parental report of the child’s speech and language skills, family history of speech and language problems, mean length ofutterances and the number of errors per utterance. In studies by Crutchley, Botting, and Conti-Ramsden (1997) and Crutchley(1999), the language achievement of bilingual children with SLI and monolingual children with SLI in English as a first andsecond language was compared. Overall, the bilingual children had lower scores than their monolingual peers onstandardized language assessment measures in the domains of vocabulary and grammar. The researchers found that thebilingual children were more likely to have language difficulties in complex language skills like morphology and grammarthan in phonological skills.

From research on SLI and bilingualism conducted so far, we must conclude that a coherent picture of the acquisition of L2in bilingual children with SLI is generally lacking. In most studies, the L1 achievement level of monolingual children wascompared with the L2 achievement level of bilingual children. No attempt has been made to take into account theachievement levels of monolingual and bilingual children with and without language impairment in the same design.Moreover, insofar as language data have been compared, only a few linguistic domains were taken into account. Studiesproviding a full account of the speech and language achievement of monolingual and bilingual children with and without SLIstill are extremely scarce.

The present study can be seen as a clinical attempt to shed light on the second language difficulties of bilingual childrenwith SLI in the Netherlands. Empirical studies on young L2 learners in the Netherlands have demonstrated that in the vastmajority of cases, bilingual children have no serious problems in acquiring phonological skills, such as articulation. However,in the linguistic domains of lexicon, morphology, and syntax, bilingual children often appear to fall behind their native peers(Driessen, van der Slik, & de Bot (2002); Lalleman, 1986; Verhoeven & Narain, 1996; Verhoeven & Vermeer, 1996). In thepresent study, an attempt was made to find out to what extent the conditions of restricted input of L2 and SLI have anadditive impact on language acquisition. Therefore, the Dutch language achievement of 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old bilingualchildren with SLI (Bili-SLI) was compared with that of three control groups of children in the same age-range: (1) typicallydeveloping monolingual Dutch children (Mono-TD), (2) typically developing bilingual children (Bili-TD), and (3)monolingual Dutch children with SLI (Mono-SLI). We did not conceive of language proficiency as a monolithic ability,but assumed that speaking a language in varying environments involves distinct subskills that can be acquired in differentialpatterns (MacWhinney, 1992). Accordingly, the achievement of phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic and textual abilitieswere assessed separately. For each of these abilities, it was determined to what extent the conditions of restricted input (L1vs. L2) and language deficit (typically developing vs. SLI) cause stagnation or a delay in language acquisition.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

A total of 1108 children, divided over the Bili-SLI group and three control groups, participated in this study. The Bili-SLIgroup consisted of 74 bilingual children (54 boys, 20 girls), learning Dutch as a second language, with SLI. The childrenoriginated from three minority groups: Turkish (n = 34), Moroccan (n = 27), and Surinamese (n = 13). The children’s agesvaried from 67 to 103 months (M = 85 months).

Three groups of children served as control groups. The first control group consisted of 137 (93 boys, 44 girls) native Dutchchildren with SLI (Mono-SLI). The children’s ages varied from 73 to 102 months (M = 86 months). All children with SLI (bothin the Bili-SLI group and in the control Mono-SLI group) were diagnosed with SLI by a multidisciplinary team of clinicallinguists, psychologists, and speech therapists. The children had normal hearing and adequate intelligence, and attendedspecial elementary schools for children with SLI in various regions of the Netherlands.

L. Verhoeven et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 32 (2011) 1798–18071800

The second control group consisted of 321 bilingual children, learning Dutch as a second language, with typical languagedevelopment (Bili-TD) who had served as a portion of the norm-group for the Dutch language test used. This group consistedof 169 boys and 152 girls originating from three minority groups: Turkish (n = 146), Moroccan (n = 114), and Surinamese(n = 61). The children’s ages varied from 67 to 102 months (M = 84 months). These children attended mainstream elementaryschools in various regions of the Netherlands.

The third control group was a group of 576 native Dutch children with typical language development (Mono-TD). Thisgroup also had served as a portion of the norm-group for the Dutch language test used and consisted of 273 boys and 303girls with ages varying from 67 to 102 months (M = 84 months).

2.2. Materials

The Dutch standardized language test ‘‘Taaltoets Alle Kinderen’’ [Language Proficiency Test for All Children] (Verhoeven &Vermeer, 2001) was used to assess the children’s Dutch language skills. This test consists of nine different subtests in thefollowing linguistic domains: phonology (auditory discrimination and articulation), lexicon (receptive vocabulary and worddefinition), word formation (function words and morphology), syntax (sentence comprehension and sentence imitation) andtext comprehension. All tasks yield sufficient reliability indices; Cronbach’s alpha was greater than .84 in all cases. These ninetasks will be described in the following.

Auditory discrimination. The auditory discrimination task was used to assess whether a child could process auditoryinformation. The investigator orally presented pairs of words to the child using a piece of paper as coverage for her mouth, sothat the child had no visual feedback. After each pair, the child had to indicate whether the words were the same by saying‘the same’ or ‘not the same’. The task consisted of 50 pairs of words, 13 of these pairs consisted of two identical words (correctresponse: ‘the same’), the remaining 37 pairs consisted of two words that differed in only one sound (correct response: ‘notthe same’). The child’s score was the total number of correct answers. The maximum score was 50. There was notermination-rule; all children were required to answer all items. An example of a word-pair with two identical words was‘kat – kat’ [cat – cat]. An example of a word-pair with two different words differing in only one sound was ‘bel – bal’ [bell –ball].

Articulation. The articulation task was used to assess whether a child could articulate all sounds in words with andwithout clusters of consonants. The investigator orally presented a word to the child which the child had to re-articulate. Thetask consisted of 45 words of different levels of articulation-difficulty, depending on the absence (less difficult) or presence(difficult) of consonant-clusters in the words. The child’s score was the total number of correctly pronounced words. Adifference in pronunciation of the child from the pronunciation of the investigator resulted in an incorrect answer, evenpronunciation-differences due to a child’s dialect. The maximum score was 45. There was no termination-rule; all childrenwere required to answer all items. An example of a word without any consonant-clusters was ‘muur’ [wall]. An example of aword with a consonant-cluster was ‘herfst’ [fall].

Receptive vocabulary. The receptive vocabulary task was used to assess a child’s receptive lexicon. The investigator orallypresented a word which was depicted in one of four line-drawings and the child had to respond by choosing the correct line-drawing. The task consisted of 96 picture-pointing items presented in order of increasing difficulty. An item contained apicture of the item of the word and three distracting pictures. The child’s score was the total number of correct answers. Themaximum score was 96. The task was terminated after five consecutive incorrect answers. An example of a picture-pointingitem was the word ‘neus’ [nose] with a line-drawing of a nose and three distracting drawings of an eye, a mouth, and a knee.

Word definition. The word definition task assessed a child’s lexicon and his or her ability to describe words. Theinvestigator orally presented words and asked the child to describe, to point to, or to demonstrate these words. When thechild’s description was not specific enough, the investigator asked the child to say some more about the word. The taskconsisted of 45 items in order of increasing difficulty. The child’s score was the total number of correct answers. Themaximum score was 45. The task was terminated after five consecutive incorrect answers. An example of a questionpresented by the investigator was ‘can you tell me what a bed is?’ An example of a correct answer for this item was ‘you cansleep in it’. An example of an insufficiently specific answer was ‘it is in my room’. Given such a response the investigatorwould ask the child to say more about it and if the child’s subsequent answer was sufficiently specific, the answer was judgedto be correct. An example of an incorrect answer to the item ‘can you tell me what a bed is?’ was ‘you can eat it’.

Morphology. The morphology task was used to assess whether a child could derive plural nouns from single nouns and pastparticiples from single present tenses. The investigator showed pictures of objects and elicited the plural nouns and pastparticiples with fixed sentences. The task consisted of 24 items, 12 plural nouns and 12 past participles. The child’s score was thetotal number of correct derivations. The maximum score was 24. There was no termination-rule; all children were required toanswer all items. An example of a fixed sentence used to elicit a plural noun was ‘this is one ship, these are two. . .’ (ships). Anexample of a fixed sentence to elicit a past participle was ‘Rosita is throwing a ball. Yesterday, she has also. . . a ball’ (thrown).

Comprehension of function words. This task was used to assess the child’s perception of grammar. The investigator orallypresented a sentence and the child had to choose the correct one of three line-drawings. The task consisted of 42 items. Thechild’s score was the total number of correct answers. The maximum score for this task was 42. There was no termination-rule; all children were required to answer all items. An example of an item from the function word comprehension task wasthe question ‘which mouse is sitting on the cheese’ with three pictures, one of a mouse sitting in front of the cheese, one of amouse sitting on the cheese and one with a mouse sitting next to the cheese.


Sentence comprehension. The sentence comprehension task was used to assess the child’s perception of grammar. This taskconsisted of sentence comprehension and concerns comprehension of word order and implicit meanings. The investigatororally presented a sentence and the child had to choose the correct one of three line-drawings. The task consisted of 42 items.The child’s score was the total number of correct answers to the questions. The maximum score for this task was 42. Therewas no termination-rule; all children were required to answer all items. An example of an item from the sentencecomprehension task was the sentence ‘the tree is taller than the house’ with three pictures of a tree and a house, one in whichthe tree is taller, one in which the house is taller, and one in which the tree was as tall as the house.

Sentence imitation. The sentence imitation task was used to assess a child’s grammatical performance. This task focusedon function words and sentence patterns. The investigator pronounced a complex sentence and the child had to repeat thesentence as accurately as possible. The task consisted of 20 sentences. The child’s score was the total number of correctlyrepeated function words plus the total number of correctly repeated sentence patterns. For each sentence the child earnedzero points if both the function word and the sentence pattern were repeated incorrectly, one point if either the functionword or the sentence pattern was repeated correctly, or two points if both the function word and the sentence pattern wererepeated correctly. The maximum score was 40. There was no cut-off rule; all children were required to answer all items. Anexample of a sentence from the sentence-imitation task was ‘Gisteren is mijn moeder met de fiets naar de stad gegaan’[Yesterday, my mother went to town by bike], ‘is’ [went] was the function word, ‘met de fiets’ [by bike] was the sentencepattern.

Story comprehension. The story comprehension task was used to assess a child’s ability to understand a spoken story. Theinvestigator told the child that she was going to tell a story and that he or she had to listen carefully, because after the storythe investigator would ask some questions about it. The questions were asked immediately after the story was told. The taskconsists of six short stories with four questions about each story. Every story had at least one yes-or-no-question. The totalnumber of items was 24. The child’s score was the total number of correct answers to the questions. The maximum score was24. There was no cut-off rule; all children were required to answer all items. An example of a story and the accompanyingquestions was ‘It is very quiet in the house. The cat is sleeping on the couch. Then, a mouse comes out of his little hole into theroom. He is looking for bread and cheese. The cat hears the mouse and jumps off the couch. He runs quickly after the mouse.The mouse is startled but suddenly has an idea. He runs to the cupboard. He knows the cat cannot get under there. He makessure that he is under there just in time.’ The four questions and answers (between brackets) were ‘where did the cat sleep?’(on the couch), ‘what is the mouse looking for?’ (bread and cheese or food), ‘why does the mouse run under the cupboard?’(because the cat cannot get under there or because he is safe there), ‘does the cat get the mouse?’ (no).

2.3. Procedure

All children were tested in six to eight sessions of 20–40 min each. Each task was explained following a protocol of verbalexplanation and two example items with positive or negative feedback. When a child did not understand the task, a secondexplanation was given and the example items were repeated and further explained or other examples were given andexplained. During the effective tasks the child was given encouragement, but no feedback on his or her answers. Theinvestigator wrote down all answers and computed the number of correct answers per child. The tasks articulation, word

definition, and sentence imitation, were audio-taped in order to verify the scores.The data were subjected to a 3 (Age: 6, 7, 8)� 4 (Group: Mono-TD, Bili-TD, Mono-SLI, Bili-SLI) MANOVA (GLM), followed

by analyses per test and per age-group. For each age-group and for each language-test task a one-way ANOVA was performedwith language task as dependent variable and group (Mono-TD, Bili-TD, Mono-SLI, Bili-SLI) as between subject factor. Toanswer the question of an additional disadvantage for Bili-SLI children, four planned contrasts were analyzed in each age-group (6, 7, and 8): (1) Mono-TD vs. Mono-SLI, (2) Mono-TD vs. Bili-TD, (3) Mono-SLI vs. Bili-SLI, and (4) Bili-TD vs. Bili-SLI. Incase of significantly higher scores for the Mono-TD group as compared with the Mono-SLI group, a disadvantage related toSLI was concluded. Likewise, we considered there to be a disadvantage for bilingualism if the Mono-TD group scoressignificantly higher than the Bili-TD group. In case a disadvantage was found for both SLI and bilingualism separately adouble disadvantage on the part of the Bili-SLI children would be concluded. We considered a difference to be significantwhen p< .0125 (a Bonferroni correction of .05 divided by four was used).

3. Results

3.1. Overall analysis

Table 1 present the means and standard deviations on the nine linguistic tasks as a function of group and age level. Themeans are also displayed in Fig. 1.

As a first step, a multivariate MANOVA (GLM) was conducted over the nine linguistic subtests with Group and Age asmain factors. Significant main effects were found for Group (F(27, 2967) = 65.36, p< .001, h2 = .37) and Age (F(18,2032) = 16.55, p< .001, h2 = .13). The Group� Age interaction was also found to be significant (F(54, 5185) = 2.73, p< .001,h2 = .02). It can be seen that overall the Mono-TD group obtained the highest scores and the Bili-SLI group the lowest scores,with intermediate positions for the Bili-TD and the Mono-SLI group, and that the scores generally increase as function of agelevel.

[()TD$FIG]

Auditory discrimination

Articulation

Receptive vocabulary

Word definition

Morphology

Comprehension of function words

Sentence comprehension

Sentence imitation

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Fig. 1. Means of monolingual typically developing children (Mono-TD), bilingual typically developing children (Bili-TD), monolingual children with SLI

(Mono-SLI), and bilingual children with SLI (Bili-SLI) on the nine Dutch language tasks.


Table 1

Means and standard deviations on the language subtests by age and by group.

Age Task (maximum score) Monolingual Bilingual

TD SLI TD SLI

M SD n M SD n M SD n M SD n

6 Auditory discrimination (50) 45.4 5.8 200 38.1 8.8 42 43.4 6.9 96 37.4 10.0 21

Articulation (45) 43.8 2.0 200 32.1 10.3 42 42.8 3.8 96 35.1 8.6 21

Receptive vocabulary (96) 62.6 13.1 200 52.8 15.0 42 37.1 12.6 96 42.1 12.8 21

Word definition (45) 17.8 6.2 200 9.1 5.1 42 8.5 5.0 96 6.3 3.8 21

Morphology (24) 15.2 4.2 200 10.1 4.5 42 7.3 4.9 96 7.7 3.5 21

Comprehension of function words (42) 34.5 4.5 200 32.3 4.9 42 30.7 5.4 96 29.2 4.6 21

Sentence comprehension (42) 32.9 4.7 200 29.6 6.1 42 27.5 5.4 96 27.5 5.4 21

Sentence imitation (40) 27.6 8.9 200 13.2 8.5 42 18.1 9.7 96 10.5 7.6 21

Story comprehension (24) 17.1 4.3 200 14.5 4.9 42 11.5 4.7 96 11.4 5.1 21


Articulation (45) 44.6 1.0 193 35.1 8.9 45 43.8 2.2 99 34.0 9.6 23


Word definition (45) 23.3 6.2 193 13.8 6.8 45 13.9 6.5 99 9.9 4.7 23

Morphology (24) 18.3 4.2 193 13.4 4.5 45 12.0 5.1 99 9.0 4.5 23






Articulation (45) 44.7 1.0 148 37.7 9.7 47 44.6 0.8 101 38.9 5.1 21


Word definition (45) 27.4 6.0 148 17.1 6.5 47 16.4 6.3 101 11.8 3.9 21

Morphology (24) 21.2 3.3 148 14.5 5.9 47 15.3 5.2 101 10.1 3.3 21






3.2. Subtest analyses

Auditory discrimination. Each of the three ANOVAs with Auditory discrimination as dependent variable, showed asignificant effect of Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 375) = 3701.67, p< .01, h2 = .98; 7-year-olds: F(4, 369) = 7051.06, p< .01,h2 = .99; 8-year-olds: F(4, 332) = 12491.88, p< .01, h2 = .99). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significantdisadvantage in auditory articulation due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was, however, no significantdisadvantage due to bilingualism: (Mono-TD vs. Bili-TD: p = .02; critical a = .0125). On average, children in the Bili-SLI groupdid score significantly lower than children in the Bili-TD group. However, no significant difference was found between themeans of children in the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups According to our criteria, therefore, there was no significant additionaldisadvantage for 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group in the area of auditory discrimination.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also, children in the Bili-SLIgroup scored significantly lower than children in the Bili-TD group. However, no significant difference was found betweenchildren in the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups. Taken together, these results reveal no significant additional disadvantage for7-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group in the area of auditory discrimination.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was no significant disadvantage due to bilingualism: (Bili-TD vs. Mono-TD: p = .11). There were no significantdifferences between the means of children in the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups, or the Bili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. Again, noadditional disadvantage was found for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on the auditory discrimination task.

To conclude, although there was a significant disadvantage due to SLI in each of the age-groups, children in the Bili-SLIgroup do not suffer from a significant additional disadvantage in the area of auditory discrimination in any of the age-groups.

Articulation. Each of the three ANOVAs with Articulation as dependent variable, showed a significant effect of Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 378) = 6769.74, p< .01, h2 = .99; 7-year-olds: F(4, 376) = 10099.01, p< .01, h2 = .99; 8-year-olds: F(4,332) = 10385.90, p< .01, h2 = .99). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI onarticulation: (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). No significant disadvantage was found for bilingualism (Bili-TD vs. Mono-TD:p = .06). A significant difference was found in the expected direction between the means of children in the Bili-TD and Bili-SLIgroups, but no difference was found between the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups. Therefore, no significant additionaldisadvantage was found for 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on articulation.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). Nosignificant disadvantage was found due to bilingualism (Bili-TD vs. Mono-TD: p = .08). Children in the Bili-SLI group didscore, on average, significantly lower than their peers in the Bili-TD group. However, no significant difference was found


between the means of children in the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups. Therefore, no significant additional disadvantage wasfound for 7-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on articulation.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds also revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).No significant disadvantage was found due to bilingualism (Bili-TD vs. Mono-TD: p = .81). Children in the Bili-SLI groupscored, on average, significantly lower than those in the Bili-TD group. There was no significant difference between themeans of the children in the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups. Therefore, no significant additional disadvantage was found for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on articulation.

To sum up, although there was a significant disadvantage due to SLI in all age-groups, there was no significant additionaldisadvantage in the area of articulation for children in the Bili-SLI group in any age-group

Receptive vocabulary. Each of the three ANOVAs with Receptive vocabulary as dependent variable, showed a significanteffect of Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 378) = 1581.26, p< .01, h2 = .94; 7-year-olds: F(4, 378) = 2397.60, p< .01, h2 = .96; 8-year-olds: F(4, 327) = 3273.82, p< .01, h2 = .98). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI(Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001).Children in the Bili-SLI group scored, on average, significantly lower than those in the Mono-SLI group, but no significantdifference was found between the means of children in the Bili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. Taken together, these results reveal nosignificant additional disadvantage for 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group in the area of receptive vocabulary.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). The mean score of the Bili-SLIgroup was significantly lower than the Mono-SLI group but no significant difference was found between the means of theBili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. According to our criteria, therefore, there was no significant additional disadvantage for 7-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group in the area of receptive vocabulary.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also as expected, children in theBili-SLI scored, on average, significantly lower than children in the Mono-SLI group, and the mean of the Bili-SLI group wassignificantly lower than that Bili-TD group. Therefore, there was a significant additional disadvantage for 8-year-old childrenin the Bili-SLI group in the area of receptive vocabulary.

Thus, for receptive vocabulary a significant disadvantage due to both SLI and bilingualism was found in each age-groupand a significant additional disadvantage was found for the 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group.

Word definition. Each of the three ANOVAs with Word definition as dependent variable, showed a significant effect of Group(6-year-olds: F(4, 377) = 583.05, p< .01, h2 = .86; 7-year-olds: F(4, 364) = 854.36, p< .01, h2 = .90; 8-year-olds: F(4,324) = 1059.21, p< .01, h2 = .93). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI(Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001).However, no significant difference was found between the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups or between the Bili-TD and Bili-SLIgroups. Therefore, no significant additional disadvantage was found for 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on worddefinition.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also as expected, children in theBili-SLI scored, on average, significantly lower than children in the Mono-SLI group, and the mean of the Bili-SLI group wassignificantly lower than that Bili-TD group. Taken together, there was a significant additional disadvantage for 7-year-oldchildren in the Bili-SLI group on word definition.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also as expected, children in theBili-SLI scored, on average, significantly lower than children in the Mono-SLI group, and the mean of the Bili-SLI group wassignificantly lower than that Bili-TD group. Again, a significant additional disadvantage was found for 8-year-old children inthe Bili-SLI group on word definition.

It can thus be concluded that for word definition a significant disadvantage was found for both SLI and bilingualism inevery age-group and a significant additional disadvantage was found for the 7- and 8-year-old Bili-SLI children.

Morphology. Each of the three ANOVA’s with Morphology as dependent variable, showed a significant effect of Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 372) = 739.47, p< .01, h2 = .89; 7-year-olds: F(4, 377) = 1118.38, p< .01, h2 = .92; 8-year-olds: F(4,332) = 1444.86, p< .01, h2 = .95). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI(Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p = .01). There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001).However, no significant differences were found between the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups or between the Bili-TD and Bili-SLIgroups. To our criteria, there was no significant additional disadvantage for 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group in thearea of morphology.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also as expected, children in theBili-SLI scored, on average, significantly lower than children in the Mono-SLI group, and the mean of the Bili-SLI group wassignificantly lower than that of the Bili-TD group. Therefore, a significant additional disadvantage found for 7-year-oldchildren in the Bili-SLI group on morphology.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also as expected, children in the


Bili-SLI scored, on average, significantly lower than children in the Mono-SLI group, and the mean of the Bili-SLI group wassignificantly lower than that of the Bili-TD group. Taken together, there was a significant additional disadvantage for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group in the area of morphology.

In sum, for morphology significant disadvantages due to SLI and bilingualism were found in each age-group and asignificant additional disadvantage was found for 7- and 8-year-old Bili-SLI children.

Comprehension of function words. Each of the three ANOVAs with comprehension of function words as dependent variable,showed a significant effect of Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 380) = 3862.17, p< .01,h2 = .98; 7-year-olds: F(4, 381) = 9476.57, p< .01,h2 = .99; 8-year-olds: F(4, 331) = 12236.38, p< .01, h2 = .99). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significantdisadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p = .01). There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also, a significant difference was found, in the expected direction, between the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLIgroups. However, no significant difference was found between the means of the Bili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. Taken together,there was no additional disadvantage for 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on comprehension of function words.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also as expected, children in theBili-SLI scored, on average, significantly lower than children in the Mono-SLI group, and the mean of the Bili-SLI group wassignificantly lower than that Bili-TD group. Therefore, there was a significant additional disadvantage for 7-year-old childrenin the Bili-SLI group on comprehension of function words.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). However, although there was asignificant difference between the means of the Bili-SLI and Bili-TD groups, there was no significant difference between theBili-SLI and Mono-SLI groups. Therefore, no significant additional disadvantage was found for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on comprehension of function words.

Thus, for comprehension of function words there was a significant disadvantage due to both SLI and bilingualism and asignificant additional disadvantage found for 7-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group.

Sentence comprehension. Each of the three ANOVAs with Sentence comprehension as dependent variable, showed asignificant effect of Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 371) = 3134.69, p< .01, h2 = .97; 7-year-olds: F(4, 378) = 5371.80, p< .01,h2 = .98; 8-year-olds: F(4, 331) = 6957.41, p< .01, h2 = .99). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significantdisadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). However, no significant differences were found between the means of the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLIgroups or between the Bili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. According to our criteria, there was no significant additional disadvantagefor 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on sentence comprehension.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was a significantdifference between the Bili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. However, no significant difference was found between the Mono-SLI andBili-SLI groups. No significant additional disadvantage was found for 7-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on sentencecomprehension.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was also a significantdifference between the means of the Bili-SLI and Bili-TD groups, and between the Bili-SLI and Mono-SLI groups. Therefore,there was a significant additional disadvantage for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on sentence comprehension.

To conclude, for sentence comprehension there were significant disadvantages for both SLI and bilingualism and asignificant additional disadvantage found for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group.

Sentence imitation. Each of the three ANOVAs with Sentence imitation as dependent variable, showed a significant effectof Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 371) = 603.51, p< .01, h2 = .87; 7-year-olds: F(4, 366) = 998.30, p< .01, h2 = .92; 8-year-olds: F(4,331) = 1494.52, p< .01, h2 = .95). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also,children in the Bili-SLI group scored, on average, significantly lower than their peers in the Bili-TD group. However, nosignificant difference was found between the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups. Therefore, there was no additional disadvantagefor 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group in the area of sentence imitation.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). In addition, although childrenin the Bili-SLI group scored, on average, significantly lower than their peers in the Bili-TD group, no significant difference wasfound between the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups. Therefore, there was no additional disadvantage for 7-year-old children inthe Bili-SLI group on sentence imitation.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001).There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Also, children in the Bili-SLIgroup scored significantly lower than their peers in the Bili-TD group. However, no significant difference was found betweenthe Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups. Taken together, no additional disadvantage was found for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on sentence imitation.

For sentence imitation, it can be concluded that there were disadvantages due to both SLI and bilingualism with noadditional disadvantage for Bili-SLI children in any of the age-groups.


Story comprehension. Each of the three ANOVAs with Story comprehension as dependent variable, showed a significanteffect of Group (6-year-olds: F(4, 368) = 1020.94, p< .01, h2 = .92; 7-year-olds: F(4, 366) = 1469.49, p< .01, h2 = .94; 8-year-olds: F(4, 332) = 2031.77, p< .01, h2 = .96). Planned contrasts for the 6-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due toSLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001). There was also a significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD;p< .001). Also, children in the Bili-SLI group scored, on average, significantly lower than children in the Mono-SLI group.However, no significant difference was found between the Bili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. Therefore, there was no significantadditional disadvantage for 6-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group.

Planned contrasts for the 7-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantage due to SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD; p< .001) anda significant disadvantage due to bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). Although the means of the Bili-SLI and Mono-SLI groups were found to differ in the expected direction, no significant difference was found between the Bili-TD and Bili-SLIgroups. Taken together, there was no additional disadvantage for 7-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on storycomprehension.

Planned contrasts for the 8-year-olds revealed a significant disadvantages due to both SLI (Mono-SLI<Mono-TD;p< .001) and bilingualism (Bili-TD<Mono-TD; p< .001). In addition, significant differences were found in the expecteddirection both between the Mono-SLI and Bili-SLI groups, and between the Bili-TD and Bili-SLI groups. Therefore, asignificant additional disadvantage was found for 8-year-old children in the Bili-SLI group on story comprehension.

To sum up, for the Story comprehension task significant disadvantages were found due to both SLI and bilingualism in allage-groups and a significant additional disadvantage was found for 8-year-old Bili-SLI children.

4. Discussion

This study was conducted to investigate whether bilingual children with SLI (Bili-SLI) show differences in languagelearning as compared with their typically developing peers as well as their native language speaking peers with SLI.Our results correspond to outcomes of earlier studies which demonstrated that bilingual children with SLI have lowerscores on language tests than native speakers with SLI. This was especially true for vocabulary and grammar skills(Crutchley et al., 1997; Crutchley, 1999). The same pattern was found in our data: especially lexicon and grammar areparticularly vulnerable areas in language development. In fact, these are the areas in which bilingual children with SLIfall behind most in comparison with typically developing bilingual children and native speakers with SLI. This can beexplained by the fact that these language areas are very vulnerable both for children with SLI (Bishop, 1997; Leonard &Deevy, 2004), and for children learning a L2, particularly bilingual children learning Dutch as L2 (Driessen et al., 2002;Verhoeven & Vermeer, 1996). From our data, it seems that bilingualism had more influence than SLI on the scores on thelexicon tasks, especially the Receptive vocabulary task at the ages 6 and 7. This can be demonstrated by the fact thatchildren in the Bili-SLI group did differ significantly from children in the Mono-SLI group on this task, but did not differsignificantly from their peers in the Bili-TD group while children in the Bili-TD group did differ significantly from thosein the Mono-TD group. Other studies on bilingual children in the Netherlands have already shown that the vocabulary ofbilingual children lags behind the vocabulary of monolingual children (Verhoeven & Narain, 1996; Verhoeven &Vermeer, 1999).

An important question in our study was to what extent bilingual children with SLI have an additional disadvantage forsecond language learning. We considered there to be an additional disadvantage for bilingual children with SLI on a givenlanguage task if there was a disadvantage for both SLI and bilingualism in comparison with typically developing nativespeakers and, in addition, if bilingual children with SLI scored significantly below both native speakers with SLI and typicallydeveloping bilingual children. An important conclusion from our study was that for most second language skills, children inthe Bili-SLI group have an additional disadvantage, at least at the age of eight. At the age of six, children in the Bili-SLI groupdo not show signs of an additional disadvantage. All tasks showing an additional disadvantage for children in the Bili-SLIgroup are part of the lexicon module or the morpho-syntax module. The only tasks that showed no additional disadvantagewere two phonological tasks (Articulation and Auditory discrimination) and the Sentence imitation task. The results for thephonological skills showed no additional disadvantage for children in the Bili-SLI group, but a determinative disadvantagedue to SLI. This can be concluded based on the fact that native speakers with SLI did not differ from bilingual children with SLIon the phonological tasks, but native speakers with SLI did differ significantly from typically developing native speakers andbilingual children with SLI did differ significantly from typically developing native speakers. This finding is in accordancewith the idea that children with SLI have difficulties with auditory processing of verbal information (e.g., Bishop, 1992).These difficulties result in lower language proficiency on skills like morphology and grammar. Problems in vocabulary andgrammar of L2 learners have not been documented as the result of difficulties in auditory processing. The explanation for theposition of bilingual children with SLI is as follows: because of their language impairment, bilingual children with SLI exhibitlanguage processing difficulties, resulting in language proficiency problems added to the language learning problems theyalready experience because they are L2 learners.

The present study can only be seen as a first step toward an understanding of the variation in language acquisition ofbilingual children with SLI. To begin with, the results of our study cannot be generalized to a developmental perspective,since our data were cross-sectional. Therefore, there is an urgent need of longitudinal studies in which the languagedevelopment in varying subpopulations is followed over the primary school years. Furthermore, in the present study werestricted ourselves to the second language of minority children with SLI with no attention to their mother tongue


proficiencies. It is highly important that future studies focus on the possibilities for assessment of bilingual children with SLItaking into account the full linguistic repertoire of these children, including their mother tongue capacities.

For clinical practice, it is important to realize that the second language repertoire of bilingual children with SLI can be seenas quite complex. On the level of phonological abilities, they reach similar proficiency levels like monolingual children withSLI whereas both groups fall behind their typically developing peers. On the lexical and morphosyntactic level, they tend toshow a double disadvantage with progression of age. It is important that clinical practitioners develop languageinterventions which are adapted to the linguistic needs of the individual child. In this respect one may think of programmesfor verbal communication in conversations (Camarata, 1993; Paul, 2006), auditory training programmes to improvediscrimination skills and encoding/decoding skills (cf. Almost & Rosenbaum, 1998; Tallal et al., 1996), and programmes topromote the understanding and production of sentence patterns (cf. Fey, Cleave, Long, & Hughes, 1993) and monologues(Warren, 1999). Given the fact that we found the second language arrears of bilingual children with SLI to be persistent it canbe seen as particularly important to begin intervention for these children at a very early age.

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