Can bilingualism be
a benefit for
children with SLI?
Sharon Armon-Lotem
The Bilingual SLI Project
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Acknowledgement
This research was supported in part by
THE ISRAEL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
(grant No.938) and by the BMBF funded
Consortium “Migration and societal
Integration”.
2
This work has been done
in collaboration with:
Carmit Altman, Jonathan Fine, Elinor Saiegh-Haddad
and Joel Walters (Bar-Ilan University), and Galit Adam
(Tel-Aviv University)
Hebrew Team:
Anat Blass, Efrat Harel, Michal Giladi, Ruti Litt, Lyle
Lustigman, Sharon Porat
English Team:
Audry Levant, Efrat Shimon, Dori Braude
Russian Team:
Lusina Danelyants, Galina Gordishevsky, Olga Gupol,
Nadya Kogan, Rina Raichlin
Definitions
►
Specific/Primary Language Impairment (SLI/PLI)
Children with normal performance IQ, who score 12
months/1 SD below chronological age on standardized
language tests, and have no: hearing disabilities,
emotional or behavior problems, observed neurological
deficit, or severe articulation/phonological deficit.
►
Bilingual children – A functional definition
Children with bilingual background who are able to
function in both languages (carry out a conversation and
understand). This includes both simultaneous bilinguals
and sequential bilinguals.
►
Bilingual SLI (BISLI)
Bilingual children who are below chronological age in both
languages .
Introduction- Children in
Multilingual Society
Dramatic increases in numbers of children being raised
bilingually in multilingual communities due to European
migrations.
► 20% of children entering Hebrew speaking secular
schools in Israel in 2004 speak a language other than
Hebrew at home (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2006).
► Threefold increase in bilingual children since 2000 in
Ireland, Italy and Spain and 50% increase since 2005 in
UK (ec.europa.eu/education)
► Limited screening and diagnostic instruments to
distinguish language-impaired migrant children from
those who will eventually catch up with their
monolingual peers.
► As a result: frequent misdiagnosis
►
Misdiagnosis - The scope of the
problem
► Israel
(Iluz-Cohen 2009) – only 5 of 14
bilingual children in language preschools were
impaired in both languages
► The Netherlands (de Jong 2009): Non-native
speakers in Dutch schools
– Mainstream schools: 14%
– Special schools: 19%
– Schools for language-impaired children: 24%
► Germany
(Berlin) - multilingual children are
underrepresented in special schools for
children with SLI (Moser 2007)
Central Issues (Paradis 2010)
► Are
bilingualism and SLI “two of a kind?”
(Crago & Paradis, 2003)
► Do bilingual children with SLI show a
"double delay?” (Paradis 2007; Paradis et
al. 2003; Paradis et al. 2005/6).
► Can bilingualism be a benefit for
children with SLI?
“Two of a Kind” ?
►
►
►
►
Some parallels are found between the language of
sequential bilingual children and the language of
children with SLI – e.g., both use bare verbs (*He go).
Paradis & Crago 2000 - while children with SLI tend to
omit the auxiliary in past or future periphrastic verb
constructions, L2 children substitute the auxiliary with the
base or present tense form.
Paradis (2008) - only L2 children generalize the use of BE,
in order to fill a gap between their communicative
demands and their knowledge of the L2 with a
morphosyntactic expression.
Both the high proportions of substitution errors and the
overgeneralization of BE single out L2 children with TLD
from children with SLI.
SLI in Hebrew monolinguals
Dromi et al. (1993, 1999)
► Predictions:
With verbal morphology so
central in Hebrew, a Semitic language, it
was predicted that
 a very few inflections, if any, would pose a
problem for children with SLI.
 inflections which carry more features would be
more difficult than those which carry fewer
features with errors that show a simpler feature
complex.
► Method:
Hebrew speaking children with SLI,
ages 4-6, using a sentence completion task
and enactments.
Findings
►
Sentence completion: while monolingual children with TLD
scored at ceiling, children with SLI showed 80% success
when one feature was involved, but hardly ever produce
the target morpheme which represented two features
(fem. pl.).
►
Enactment: while monolingual children with TLD scored at
ceiling, children with SLI showed 80% success when one
feature was involved, but only 60% success when two
features (person and gender) were involved.
►
While in English most errors are omissions, in Hebrew most
errors are substitutions in which a morpheme which marks
just one feature was used to replace a morpheme which
marks two features
Study I – Inflections Use in L2
Hebrew by Bilinguals with TLD
#
Age
LoE
Hebrew
L2 evaluation
evaluation
Russian- 15
Hebrew
5-7
2<
Within
norms
(Goralnik
1995)
No history of language
impairment in Russian.
Z-score higher than -1 (based
on 80 Russian-Hebrew bilinguals
in regular preschools) on NWR,
sentence imitation, and MLU in
narrative in Russian
English- 11
Hebrew
(Shimon
2008)
5-7
2<
Within
norms
Goralnik
1995)
Within norms
(CELF2 preschool)
Sentence completion
TLD vs. MOSLI
*
*
MOSLI (Dromi et al. , 1999)
Major Findings
►
►
►
►
Speakers of Hebrew as L2 whose L1 is English, are
almost at ceiling for all three morphemes after two
years of exposure to Hebrew
Speakers of Hebrew whose L1 is Russian with a
similar length of exposure are at ceiling for two of the
three morphemes, but score like monolingual children
with SLI on the plural morpheme.
The few errors documented in the Hebrew L2 data
were erroneous choice of tense which did not involve
a fewer number of features, or, for the children with
L1 Russian use of the more complex agreement
morpheme (fem. pl.) due to code interference from L1
Russian.
These data confirm that SLI and L2 are not "two of a
kind".
“Double Delay” ?
► Rational:
 Due to limited processing capacity (LPC) children with
SLI would need more exposure to fully acquire
linguistic paradigms.
 Bilingual children with SLI have less frequent
exposure to each language by being bilingual, and
have functionally less exposure being SLI.
 Thus, a "double delay" is expected among bilingual
children with SLI
► Bilingual
children with SLI are as accurate as
monolingual children with SLI in their use of ten
different grammatical morphemes in their
spontaneous speech (Paradis 2007; Paradis et
al. 2003; Paradis et al. 2005/6).
Study II – Language use in Narrative
(Moldinov 2010)
Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals with SLI &
Hebrew Monolinguals with SLI
#
Age
LoE
BiTLD 20
5;0-6;2
2<
BiSLI
9
MoSLI 14
►
Hebrew
score
Within
norms
(Goralnik
1995)
L2 evaluation
6;3-6;10 2<
< -1.5 SD
parents reported delay in L1
Russian. All were receiving
treatment by an SLP
5;1-6;5
< -1.5 SD
No history of language
impairment in Russian.
Z-score higher than -1 (based
on 80 Russian-Hebrew
bilinguals in regular
preschools) on NWR, sentence
imitation, and MLU in narrative
in Russian
Task: telling a story from a set of pictures
MoSLI BiSLI
BiTLD
Mean # of clauses
13.93
12.22
15.8
Mean # of words
44.96
40.22
57.15
MLC
3.23
3.29
3.29
Syntactic complexity 0.012
0.006
0.08
Cohesion
6.8
8.2
5.9
Syntactic complexity = # of complex clauses/# of clauses
Cohesion = # of coordinators/# of clauses
Findings
► No
significant difference between MoSLI
and BiSLI on a range of linguistic
measures
► Significant difference between BiTLD and
the two SLI groups
► Impaired bilinguals achieve a similar level
of performance to impaired monolinguals,
thus showing no double delay effects for
the impaired children.
Study III – Hebrew Inflections
in BISLI
►9
bilingual English-Hebrew children, ages 5-7, who
attend language preschool following an earlier
diagnosis for SLI.
► The bilingual children were all sequential bilinguals
and were exposed to Hebrew for at least two
years.
► All scored lower than -1 SD below norm on the
CELF2 preschool for English and lower than -1.5
SD below norm on the Goralnik for Hebrew.
► Monolingual SLI (MoSLI) from Dromi et al (1999)
Enactment
BISLI and MOSLI
BISLI
MOSLI
Major Findings
► On
the three inflectional categories which were
tested in both studies, no significant difference
was found between the two groups, neither in the
degree of success, nor in the type of errors
(choosing the 3rd person form which has no suffix
instead of a form inflected with a suffix for 1st or
2nd person).
► Impaired bilinguals achieve a similar level of
performance to impaired monolinguals, thus
showing no double delay effects for the impaired
children.
Sentence completion
BISLI and MOSLI
?
MOSLI
Major Findings
► Bilingual
children with SLI are not only as accurate
as monolingual children with SLI, and sometimes
even do better
► In the present tense, bilingual children with SLI do
better than Dromi et al.'s monolingual children
with SLI
► This is noteworthy in the use of the rare and
marked feminine plural.
► Can
SLI?
bilingualism be beneficial for children with
Can Bilingualism be a Benefit?
►
►
►
►
Does bilingualism offer compensatory mechanisms for
children with SLI, either by counteracting the effects of
limitations in processing abilities or of impaired linguistic
system?
Bialystok (2007) - bilingual children have certain superior
executive functions which are manifested by enhanced
metalinguistic awareness.
Roeper (2009) - bilingualism can be instructive, due to the
organization of the dual linguistic system.
Can bilingual children with SLI rely on their knowledge of
L1 in acquiring the L2, in a way which gives them an
advantage over monolingual children with SLI?
Two Examples of Linguistic Benefits
► Reference
in Narrative
► Preposition
Study IV - Reference in Narrative:
English-Hebrew Bilinguals with SLI &
Hebrew Monolinguals with SLI (Jaber 2009)
#
Age
LoE
Hebrew score L2 evaluation
(CELF2 preschool)
(Goralnik
1995)
BiTLD
9
5-7
2<
Within norms
Within norms
BiSLI
8
5-7
2<
< -1.5 SD
< -1 SD
MoSLI 8
5-7
►
< -1.5 SD
Task - telling a story from a set of pictures (Goralnik 1995)
Sample narrative (MoSLI)
‫אמא הכינה לילדים שלה אוכל ואכלו ואכלו‬
.‫אח"כ בא לו זבוב‬
‫אח"כ הוא כעס‬
‫אח"כ שמו לה בייגלה בזנב‬
‫אח"כ שמו לה בשערות משהו חם‬
. ‫אח"כ ניקו אותה וזהו‬
Mom prepared food for her children and pro ate.pl and pro ate.pl
Then, came a fly.
Then, he was angry
Then, pro put.pl a pretzel on her tail.
Then, pro put.pl something hot in her hair
Then, pro cleaned.pl her and that’s it
Referencing by a Pronoun
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
MOSLI
Correct referencing: subject
Incorrect referencing
BISLI
BITLD
Correct referencing: non-subject
Referencing by a Null Subject in the Narrative
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
MOSLI
BISLI
Correct referencing
BITLD
Incorrect referencing
Major Findings
► English-Hebrew
bilingual children with SLI
benefit from bilingualism when making a
reference in the narrative, both in the use of
null subject and in the use of accusative
pronouns
► The more restricted use of null subject and
the accusative pronouns in English helps
these children use this structure in the L2
Study V - The use of Prepositions:
Russian-Hebrew Bilinguals with SLI,
English-Hebrew Bilinguals with SLI &
Hebrew Monolinguals with SLI
#
Age
LoE
EnglishHebrew
8
5-7
RussianHebrew
3
6-7
MoSLI
8
5;6-7
►
L2 evaluation
2<
Hebrew
score
(Goralnik
1995)
< -1.5 SD
2<
< -1.5 SD
parents reported delay in L1
Russian. All were receiving
treatment by an SLP
< -1 SD
(CELF2 preschool)
< -1.5 SD
Task – Sentence Repetition, two types of preposition.
A few words on prepositions
► Prepositions
are a locus of code interference in
bilingual populations.
► Some children with SLI show omission of
prepositions (Roeper et al., 2001)
► Hebrew - two major types of prepositions:
 restricted prepositions (e.g., laugh at) - have mainly a
grammatical function
 free prepositions (temporals and locatives, e.g., on the
table/in the morning) - have a semantic function, as
well, contributing to the meaning of the sentence.
► English
– a third type:
 restricted prepositions in particle verbs (turn on, look
for) - have a semantic function, changing the meaning
of the verb
Prepositions and SLI:
Predications
►
►
►
►
►
Children with SLI show difficulties with structures which are
grammatically motivated, and do better with structures which are
semantically motivated
In Hebrew, restricted prepositions have a very limited semantic
motivation and their omission is expected
In English, a sub-group of the restricted prepositions (particles)
changes the meaning of the verb and has a semantic basis
Particles in particle verbs in English promote awareness of the
obligatoriness of prepositions in phrasal verbs in both languages of a
English-Hebrew bilingual child, and can facilitate the use of
obligatory prepositions in a language which has no particles (e.g,
Hebrew).
Children with BISLI whose L1 is English have a better chance at
realizing that restricted prepositions are indeed obligatory, than
children who have no place in their language where restricted
prepositions are semantically motivated (e.g., monolingual Hebrew
speaking children with SLI, or Russian-Hebrew bilinguals with SLI).
Error type per preposition type
Frequency of errors by error type per preposition type
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
R-prep
F-prep
BISLI-EH [N=8]
R-prep
F-prep
R-prep
LPS-RH [N=3]
ci-sub
sub
ci-om
F-prep
MoSLI [N=8]
om
Discussion
► English-Hebrew
bilingual children benefit from the
bilingual situation in the use of preposition
► Russian-Hebrew bilingual children, whose L1
Russian has no particles, do not show benefits of
bilingualism.
► Such findings suggest that knowing one language
could help children with SLI bootstrap the learning
of a second one.
► Bootstrapping depends on the nature of the two
languages.
Conclusion
►L2
knowledge and impaired
knowledge are not "two of a kind“
►bilingualism does not lead to a "dual
delay" in bilingual children with SLI
►Bilingualism might have a facilitative
effect and an instructive value for
children with SLI
‫תודה‬
Thank you
Спасибо