Introduction to second language
acquisition and Specific Language
Impairments in Children
37-975-01
Challenges to Language Acquisition:
Bilingualism and Language Impairment
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Bar Ilan University
1. Bilingualism and Second
Language Acquisition
Who is bilingual?
 How does one become bilingual?
 Is it a homogeneous group?
 Are these facts related? Why? How?
 Related issues
 How are bilinguals different from
monolinguals?

Who is bilingual?




A bilingual knows two
languages
A bilingual speaks two
languages
A bilingual is native or
near-native in two
languages
Functional Bilingualism
(Kohnert 2008)
How does one become bilingual?





Immigrants
Indigenous minorities
Bidialectal populations
Privileged populations (e.g. Anglophones in
Canadian French immersion programs, Israelis
who have returned from extended stays in North
America)
By parental choice
Is it a homogeneous group?
Age of acquisition
 Birth order and family size
 Order of L1/L2 acquisition (simultaneous/
sequential)
 Acquisition context (e.g. one parent for
each language/L1 at home and L2 at
school).

Are these facts related? Why?
How?
Age – most L2 learners are older than L1
learners
 Degree of success attained by the learner
 Fossilization – L2 learners often get stuck
at a point short of native-like grammar

Related issues
Simultaneous vs. sequential bilingualism
 Critical period
 Transfer vs. access

How are bilinguals different from
monolinguals?
Simultaneous bilingual (age 3;7(
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*EFR: Do you want to read the Jungle Book?
*YAR: I can see Mowgli going.
*EFR: what can you see here?
*YAR: Bagheera take him to the animals.
*EFR: really? who are these?
*YAR: the wolfim.
*EFR: and here?
*YAR: I can see Baloo and the Mowgli.
*EFR: what are they doing?
*YAR: they throwing nuts.
*EFR: they throwing nuts.
*EFR: and now?
*YAR: Mowgli going quickly and Bagheera’s sleeping.
*EFR: oh.
*YAR: now Baloo want to eat the monkeys.
*EFR: and now?
*YAR: here Mowgli with Shere Khan.
*EFR: what happened to Mowgli?
*YAR: and he is doing fire to Shere Khan.
*EFR: Shere Khan is scared.
*YAR: why?
*EFR: he is afraid of Mowgli.
*YAR: yeah, from the esh.
L1 Hebrew, L2 English (age 5;1, LoE 6 mos)
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INV: do you want to tell me what happened yesterday at school?
GAL: yeh.
INV: what happened?
GAL: we are do a project.
INV: you did a project, yes.
GAL: and we we play with play-doe in Miss Pam.
INV: oh, you played with play-doe?
GAL: yes.
GAL: and Miss Lilach come back.
INV: ah, Miss Lilach came back?
GAL: yeh.
GAL: and ...
INV: did she play with you?
GAL: no.
INV: did she tell you a story?
GAL: no.
INV: what did she do?
GAL: they, they show a picture of his baby and give us stickers.
com: <1,2> she <7> her
L1 Russian, L2 Hebrew (Age 4;7)
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Lital
Int 1
Lital
Int 1
Lital
Int 1
Lital
Int 1
Lital
Int 1
Lital
Int 1
Lital
Int 1
Lital
Ani roca she taasi li meshulash.
Bevakasha.
Aval gam et ha-ceva shelo taasi.
Kaxa?
Ve gam po ve gam po. Ribua. Kaze davar. ….. Kmo xalon ze.
Naxon.
Az tavi li ani ecayer lax mashu.
Ma at taasi?
Ani ose im ze ceva kaxol i ceva yarok.
Boi ani aazor lax.
Od lo asitnu et ha-ribua.
Az ma ze? ze ribua?
Aval ze ktana ribua.
Az eze at roca?
Gdola gdola
2. Specific Language Impairment
Language impairment with no hearing loss (no
history of otitis media), no emotional and
behavioral problems, no below average nonverbal IQ(>=85), no neurological problems, and
no oral or facial defects (Tallal & Stark 1981). A
developmental language disorder characterized
by Gleason (2001, p. 504) as involving ‘delayed
or deviant language development in a child who
exhibits no cognitive, neurological or social
impairment’ (Radford 2006).
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
Major Issues
Frequency of SLI
 Genetic basis of SLI
 Neurological basis of SLI
 Overall characteristics of SLI

Sentences produced by children with SLI
(Radford 2006)
Sentences produced by the SLI children in the Leonard files on the childes data-base .
No
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4
5
6
7
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18
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20
Child
B
B
C
C
C
C
D
D
D
D
D
D
E
F
G
G
H
H
J
K
Child utterance
Maybe goes on this one
What say?
Can get us some them?
Do this come out?
Billy wanna has his blocks out
The tree must broken off
Superman have him hands up
And they’re jump in water
This is mine daddy’s
I will be Chad brother
Them is boys
Me don’t know how do it
How you knowed?
It cames off
I didn’t sawed you come in
Think her too growed up
What is this is?
What next one is?
Hope him gonna hit him butt
Me no like him
Adult counterpart
Maybe it goes on this one
What did you/d’you say?
Can you get us some of them?
Does this come out?
Billy wants to have his blocks out
The tree must have broken off
Superman has his hands up
And they’re jumping in the water
This is my daddy’s
I will be Chad’s brother
They are boys
I don’t know how to do it
How did you know?
It came off
I didn’t see you come in
I think she’s too grown up
What is this?
What’s the next one?|
I hope he’s gonna hit his butt
I don’t like him
Expressive vs. receptive deficit





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SLI children typically show some (or all) of the following types of
impairment :
Phonological (e.g. problems with consonant clusters and syllable-final
consonants)
Lexical (delayed acquisition of words – e.g. first word appears around 23
months in SLI children, but around 11 months in TD children; SLI children
also have word-finding problems)
Semantic (problems in determining the linguistic meaning of words, phrases
and sentences, and understanding the meaning of metaphors)
Grammatical (e.g. problems with affixes/inflections and articles/particles,
complex syntax)
Pragmatic (e.g. problems in the use of language in appropriate contexts)
Reading problems
Delay versus Deviance
Delay: Protracted acquisition of language,
following typical developmental pattern.
Deviance: Different developmental
sequences and processes.
 Delay
 Plateau
 Profile differences
 Abnormal frequency of errors
 Qualitative difference
“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.
3. Bilingual SLI
Bedore, L.M. & Pena, E.D. (2008).
Assessment of Bilingual Children for
Identification of Language Impairment:
Current Findings and Implications for
Practice. International Journal of Bilingual
Education & Bilingualism, 11,1, 1-29.
L1 Russian, L2 Hebrew (4;7)
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Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
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Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Ma ata mecayer
Lo yodeya.
Ata roce be-acmexa o she ani azor?
Izo.
Izor? Keilu ani aazor?
Ken.
Aval tesaper li ma ata roe ba sefer tov?
Ze.
Mi ze?
Yosenet.
Com % In the pictures he sees a boy.
Ma? Yoshenet.
Osenet po. Oshenet po.
Ma maxzik ha-yeled?
Yeled mazik bi ze…… shinaim.
Ma?
Et ze.
Ve ma ze?
Xatul.
Ma hu ose sham?
Ee…. Pes kelev.
Ma hu ose? Ani roca ladaat ani lo yodaat,… Hu mecayer.
Ken.
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Int 1 Ve ma hu roe ba xalon.
Child
Ba-xalon i bait.
Int 1 Ba-xalon i ibait.
Child
Ze kelev.
Int 1 Ve ma ze? Bait shel kelev?
Child
Ze.. Ine ze kelev bait.
Int 1 Ve ze?
Child
Ze…bait kelev. Olex kaxa.
Int 1 Ze bait kelev olex kaxa . Ma od ata roe ma ze?
Child
Be.. Ec.
Int 1 Naxon ec, kol ha-kavod,….. Ata o(h)ev ecim yesh lexa ba-bait ec?
Child
Lo.
Int 1 Lama?
Child
Li yesh ba-bait peax.
Int 1 Ve mi metapel ba-perax?
Child
Eee…ima.
Int 1 Ma hi osa?
ChildHi osa.. Main mm peax.
Int 1 Hi osa maim praex …tov.… Ve mi zot?
Child
Lo yodeya.
Int 1 Ulai zot maxshefa?
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Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
Child
com
Child
Int 1
Child
Int 1
dvarim?
Child
Child
Aval ze uga yom -uledet.
Naxon.
Li yesh yom –uledet.
Matai yesh lexa yom –uledet.
Ein li …aya.
Aaa… aya lexa, evanti, ve ex aya?
Aya kef.
Ma ata omer?, ivi(h)u lexa uga?
Ken, ima.
Ima?
Ken.
Kan o ba-bait?
Ba-bait.
Ma ata omer?….ve (h)ayu lexa orxim?
Ken orxim ve ba-bait.
Ve mi ba?
Saba vee lo yodeya…. Ima veeee.. Lo yodeya.
Child sees a car in the picture
Oto!!!
Oto! Ata o(h)ev oto?
Ma ze ? Ma ose?
Ma hu ose? Hu xoshev, hu xoshev ma lecayer. Naxon she ata ciyarta
Ken.
Ken… hu cayer.
Paradis (1999) and Crago &
Paradis (2000)


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L1 and L2 French-speaking SLI children
A range of measures related to the ‘optional infinitive’
phenomenon
“Significant similarities” between SLI and L2 learners,:



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Tense marking
Avoidance of object clitics
Verb diversity
Use of general purpose verbs (e.g. do, make).
 tense-marking may not be an effective clinical indicator
of SLI for second language learners.
Naming (Simonsen, 2002)
6 years old Swedish- Finish BL
 Naming task (Renfrew Word Finding
Vocabulary test)

Scores
Total naming time
SLI
Controls
BL
25.9
28.6
ML
28.5
36.3
SLI
Controls
BL
06:26
06:02
ML
04:11
04:53
Findings


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MSLI- phonological naming problems more often than
the other groups (can explain their fast naming speed)
Substitution of phonemes: MSLI > BSLI
The bilingual children have difficulty in finding words
BLC is slow in naming, does not find the target word as
accurately as the MLC, but uses strategies that are
pragmatically efficient: describes, chooses a Finnish
word, or uses gestures.
The use of definite article (Scheaffer at al.,
2003)


In children with SLI (14 Subjects: 3;11-4;10),
pragmatic principles develop normally as a
function of age, rather than as a function of
grammar developmental stage.
Grammatically, 4-year old children with SLI
make errors comparable to younger normally
developing children.
Predictions
Omission of the indefinite article in English
will be found both for TD and for at-risk
children, and cannot be considered
indicative of SLI.
 Omission of definite articles in both
languages will be found for at-risk children,
and can be indicative of SLI.

Armon-Lotem, Danon & Walters (2006)

12 sequential bilinguals, ages 4-7 (mean age 5;9), from Englishspeaking homes exposed to L2 Hebrew in Hebrew-speaking pre-school
programs for over two years, who attend “language preschools”.

6 age matched TD bilinguals, from English-speaking homes, who attend
regular preschools.

10 are younger TD bilinguals (mean age 4;1) from bilingual or
monolingual non-Hebrew-speaking homes, who attend regular
preschools.

Most children come from the same neighbourhood and all from the same
(middle-high) SES

Children are screened for both languages and are classified as children
with typical development (TD), Hebrew typical development (H-TD),
English typical development (E-TD), atypical development (A-TD). H-TD,
E-TD, and A-TD are considered to be At-Risk for SLI.

This division reflects their linguistic abilities as diagnosed by
standardized tests (e.g., CELF Preschool for English, Goralnik for
Hebrew). TD is less than 1.5 SD below the norm.
Method



Spontaneous data were collected and
supplemented by an elicited production task
(Thornton 1996, Scheaffer 1997 for
definiteness).
All data were collected in separate sessions for
each language by native speakers.
Findings were analyzed for each child
separately, yielding individual language profiles,
which, when combined, yield group profiles
Naturalistic Samples – Young TD
Frequency of correct use, omission and commission
(wrong article) of articles in Hebrew and English
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Correct
Omission
Wrong
article
Correct
The/ha-
Omission
a-
English
Hebrew
Wrong
article
Naturalistic sample – At Risk
Use, omission and commission (wrong article) of
articles in Hebrew and English (raw numbers)
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
12%
20%
8%
Correct
Omission
Wrong
article
Correct
The/ha-
Omission
a-
English
Hebrew
Wrong
article
Spontaneous sample Summary

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
Both TD and At-Risk bilingual children omit the
indefinite article in English.
This error reflects the typological difference
between Hebrew and English, and the process
of feature reassembly.
Only the At-Risk children drop the definite article
in obligatory contexts in both languages: 8% in
English naturalistic 12% in Hebrew naturalistic
data.
This error resembles Scheaffer at al’s (2003) for
English monolingual SLI children
The projects
37-975-01
Challenges to Language Acquisition:
Bilingualism and Language Impairment
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Bar Ilan University
Syntax and morphology
Syntax and morphology are sources of linguistic indicators of SLI and a
central focus of ongoing research on bilingual SLI (Armon-Lotem et al. 2008;
Chilla & Barbur 2008; Jacobson & Schwartz 2002; de Jong et al. 2007;
Marinis 2007; Papadopoulou 2009; Roeper 2004; Rothweiler et al. 2007). This
project will target morphosyntactic and syntactic phenomena in both
languages that have been shown to be vulnerable in monolingual children with
SLI ,e.g. verbal inflections (third person s He walks), auxiliaries (such as in He
is walking), plural marking on nouns and adjectives (such as the suffix im in
yeladim ktanim ‘little children’ in Hebrew or ‘the little children’ in English,
determiners (such as the in The boy walked), prepositions (such as at in He
laughed at the girl, or on in He turned on the light), and case marking (such as
Russsian On dal mashinu mal'chiku‘ He gave car to boy .(’Omission and/or
substitution of such morphemes is often taken to be an indicator of SLI, but in
bilingual contexts such errors could reflect L2 characteristics and/or
crosslinguistic influence. For example, Russian does not have definite articles,
and Russian-Hebrew bilingual children often omit the definite article in
Hebrew .In terms of syntax, we include sentences with non-canonical wordorder, e.g. passives (The elephant was pushed by the giraffe), wh-questions
(Who did the elephant push), and relative clauses (The elephant who the
giraffe pushed ran away), but leave room for other phenomena, based on the
typology of the language pairs .In this context, a distinction between code
interference errors and errors which cannot be traced to code interference has
been shown to be an effective marker for distinguishing TDL and SLI
bilingualism (Armon-Lotem & Walters 2008, 2009).
Sentence Repetition (SR)

Sentence Repetition (SR), effective in
distinguishing typically-developing children from
children with language impairment (ContiRamsden et al. 2001) will be used to study
syntax and its interface with morphology by
identifying structures which are less sensitive to
crosslinguistic differences, and are vulnerable
for monolingual and bilingual children with SLI,
but not for typically developing bilingual
children .
Level 1 – 20 sentences
1. SVO with one auxiliary X2, SVO with one modal x2
1. The kitten is chasing the rat up and down.
noun-noun, 9 words, 3 lexical, 6 functional, 11 syllables
2. They are eating the bananas in the park .
pronoun – noun, 8 words, 3 lexical, 5 functional, 11
syllables
3. The boy must sweep the floor in the kitchen .
noun – noun, 9 words, 4 lexical, 5 functional, 10
syllables
4. She can bring the glass to the table .
pronoun - noun, 8 words, 3 lexical, 5 functional, 9
syllables
Level 2 – 20 sentences
3. Long actional and non-actional passives 4X
9. The sandwich was eaten by the postman. (actional, noun, 7 words, 3 lexical,
4 functional, 10 syllables)
10. He was kicked in the leg by the donkey. (actional, pronoun, 9 words, 3
lexical, 6 functional, 10 syllables)
11. The bear was feared by the boy in the park. (non-actional, 10 words, 4
lexical, 6 functional, 10 syllables)
12 .She was seen by the doctor in the morning. (non-actional, pronoun, 9
words, 3 lexical, 6 functional, 11 syllables)
4. wh-object which question 2X and indirect object wh-questions 2x
13. Which drink did the milkman spill in the house? (noun, 9 words, 4 lexical, 5
functional, 10 syllables)
14. Which picture did he paint at home yesterday? (pronoun, 8 words, 3 lexical,
5 functional, 11 syllables)
15. Who did the father cook the meal for today? (noun, 9 words, 3 lexical, 6
functional, 11 syllables)
16. Who did she give the beautiful rose to? (pronoun, 8 words, 3 lexical, 5
functional, 10 syllables)
Level 3 – 20 sentences
2. SO relative clause – centre embedded 4x
5. The swan that the dear chased knocked over the plant. (noun – noun – noun, 10
words, 5 lexical, 5 functional, 11 syllables)
6. The horse that the farmer pushed kicked him in the back. (noun – noun - pronoun, 11
words, 5 lexical, 6 functional, 12 syllables)
7. The boy that the milkman helped has lost his way. (noun – noun - noun, 10 words, 5
lexical, 5 functional, 11 syllables)
8. The bee that the man swallowed had hurt him. (noun – noun – pronoun, 9 words, 4
lexical, 5 functional, 10 syllables)
3. Sentence Complex sentences with conditionals (2 simple, 2 complex)
9. The people will get a present if they clean the house. (11 words, 5 lexical, 6 functional,
13 syllables)
10. If the kids behave we will go in the garden. (10 words, 4 lexical, 6 functional, 12
syllables)
11. He wouldn’t have brought his friend if she was nasty. (10 words, 4 lexical, 6
functional, 12 syllables)
12. If she was poorly she would go to the nurse. (10 words, 4 lexical, 6 functional, 11
syllables)
NWR
Phonological processing and auditory memory, claimed to be
impaired in children with SLI (Graf-Estes et al. 2007), should be
intact in bilingual children with TLD, offering a promising direction for
disentangling the two. Previous research has shown that
monolingual and bilingual children with SLI perform poorly on nonword repetition (NWR) tasks (Gathercole & Pickering 2000; Girbau &
Schwartz 2007). This task requires children to repeat nonce words
and primarily taps phonological memory, but can also address
lexical processing when the words are designed to reflect syllable
structure, stress patterns and phonotactic rules similar to words in
the target language. The task has been claimed to relate to
vocabulary development (Gathercole 2006, and possibly to the
development of syntax too (Stokes et al. 2006). The project will use
a non-word repetition (NWR) task, developed in collaboration with
Chiat (Chiat 2006; Roy & Chiat 2004) which include both non-words
and pseudo words to make it possible to tap both on auditory
memory and linguistic knowledge in both languages. Words will vary
in syllable length (from one to four syllables) to tap on short term
memory and in terms of clusterhood (no cluster, initial cluster and
medial cluster), since clusters often pose greater difficulty for
children with SLI (Marshall et al. 2009).
The Russian-Hebrew task


Version 1: 48 words were used in each language.
Variables:
 Length
(1-4 syllables)
 Clusterhood (with or without a cluster, initial cluster or
medial cluster)
 Degree of similarity to the target language (target
like/pseudo words vs. non-target like/non-words).


14 categories. Each category (with two
exceptions) was represented by three items.
Version 2: A subset of 16 items – 8 pseudo words,
8 non-words, 1-4 syllables, with and without a
cluster.
‫מספר מילה‬
‫‪1‬‬
‫‪2‬‬
‫‪3‬‬
‫‪4‬‬
‫‪5‬‬
‫‪6‬‬
‫‪7‬‬
‫‪8‬‬
‫‪9‬‬
‫‪10‬‬
‫‪11‬‬
‫‪12‬‬
‫מספר מילה‬
‫‪13‬‬
‫‪14‬‬
‫‪15‬‬
‫‪16‬‬
‫מילה‬
‫מַ גָט‬
‫תֶ נֹוג‬
‫סְפיר‬
‫פְמּון‬
‫קְ ריּפר‬
‫דְ פּולה‬
‫ַּפ ְלבָן‬
‫רּומְ דיק‬
‫ָרדיקּות‬
‫ניסְּפּולֶר‬
‫מַ ְבלֶפה‬
‫וֹולּושֶן‬
‫מילה‬
‫דָ נְפּותִ יּות‬
‫מֹוסֹונֶטָל‬
‫דיפ ְֶרנֶסיל‬
‫היתְ ב ְָרשֶ בּות‬
‫ילד‬
‫תקין‬
‫‪magat‬‬
‫‪tenog‬‬
‫‪sfir‬‬
‫‪fmun‬‬
‫‪qripar‬‬
‫‪dfula‬‬
‫‪palban‬‬
‫‪rumdiq‬‬
‫‪radiqut‬‬
‫‪nispuler‬‬
‫‪mavlepa‬‬
‫‪volushen‬‬
‫תקין‬
‫‪danfutiyut‬‬
‫‪mosonetal‬‬
‫‪difrenesil‬‬
‫‪hitbarshevut‬‬
‫ילד‬
Narrative and discourse abilities
Narrative and discourse abilities pose difficulties for children with
SLI, since the ability to construct a narrative relies on a range of
linguistic skills, including lexical, grammatical and discourse abilities
(e.g. temporality, cohesion, etc.). SLI children generally use fewer
connectives, more lexical ties and more unclear reference, and find
it difficult to gain entry to an existing dyadic interproject (Thompson,
Craig & Washington 2004). Research on bilingual narrative skills is
still limited (e.g. Pearson 2001, 2002; Fiestas & Peña 2004), and
even more limited among BISLI children (Guttierez-Clellan et al.
2008; Uccelli & Paez 2007). Potentially diagnostic features are
informed by Ravid and Berman (2006) and will be targeted from: 1.
lexicon (lexical diversity, general purpose verbs; 2. morphosyntax,
i.e. tense/aspect markers found in narrative discourse; 3. syntax,
e.g. subordination and other means to distinguish main ideas from
details; 4. narrative structure (e.g. story grammar categories,
connectives, clause sequencing; 5. discourse features, e.g.
information density, elaborations, topic maintenance, explicitness; 6.
fluency features including repetitions, false starts, pauses, discourse
markers; and 7. frequency, locus and directionality of
codeswitching .
Story Retelling
The project will make use of a bilingual retelling task in
which a child is asked to retell stories in L1-L2, L2-L1
and codeswitched conditions to listeners with different
language preferences (Raichlin & Walters 2007; IluzCohen 2008). This task has been found effective in
distinguishing between bilinguals with TLD and those
with SLI (Iluz-Cohen 2008; Iluz-Cohen et al. 2009).
Retelling permits examination of the range of features
mentioned above, assessment of language dominance
and codeswitching patterns based on: frequency, locus
and directionality (L1->L2 vs. L2->L1) and pragmatic
differences in codeswitching related to story content and
listener's preferred language .
The Story retelling Task (Stein & Glen, 1979)
Three conditions (Walters & Reichlin 2005):
1. Story told in Hebrew (L2) was retold in English (L1)
to an English monolingual puppet.
2. Story told in English (L1) was retold in Hebrew (L2)
to a Hebrew monolingual puppet.
3. Story told in a switched manner was retold to a
bilingual puppet. Language of retelling depended
on the child's choice.
Child is recorded and transcribed.
Home setting
School setting
Neutral setting
Executive Functions
Executive functions ,among other cognitive skills,
seem to offer a promising direction for disentangling
bilingualism and SLI. Monolingual children with SLI
perform worse than typically developing children on
tasks tapping executive functions (e.g., Montgomery
2002; Baddeley & Hitch 1974; Baddeley 2007), and this
suggests that they have a deficit in memory-related
executive functions. On the other hand, recent research
on adult bilinguals has demonstrated enhanced abilities
in executive functions tapping inhibition and shifting
(Bialystok & Martin 2004), which relate to monitoring two
languages at the same time and being able to switch
between the two languages .The question is whether
bilingual children with SLI will be able to take advantage
of the better performance found with adult bilinguals or
whether their language impairment will have a
weakening effect on their performance in executive
function tasks .
This project will target executive functions in bilingual
children with SLI in language and non-language oriented
tasks. Cognitive (non-linguistic) tasks include the
Embedded Figures Task (Piaget & Inhelder, 1971;
Pascual-Leone, 1989) which tests inhibition, and
classification tasks adapted to test shifting in bilingual
preschool children (Smidts et al. 2004). Tasks of this
type are also found in standardized tests such as the
Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery
(CANTAB) and the Wisconsin Card Sort test. Impairment
in executive function could influence language abilities
which have direct manifestations in bilinguals. A bilingual
verbal fluency task (Luk & Bialystok, 2008) taps
language control abilities, and will also serve as a
measure of proficiency in both languages. A bilingual
picture naming task (Hernandez et al., 2001; Festman et
al., in press; Biran & Friedmann, 2005) will be used to
test language control, that is, interference of the nontarget language.
Cognitive executive control
Inhibition
The Embedded Figures Task (based on Piaget &
Inhelder, 1966; Pascual-Leone, 1989; De-Avila & Ducan,
1980).
Ten pictures were presented, each includes an
embedded mouse, which the child was asked to spot as
fast as possible. Pictures were presented in a gradually
increasing level of difficulty. Time was measured, and
errors, failures and successful turns were noted.
Degree of inhibition ability: the number of correct
answers, ranging from 0 to 10.
Where
is the
mouse?
Shifting
18 cards were presented.
The Classification
 3 different shapes
Task (based on Ben-Zeev,
(circle, triangle, square)
1977)

3 different patterns (no
color, partial-color,
full-color).

1 vs. 3 items of each
shape.
Procedure & Analysis
Child is requires to classify them, and
reclassify them in a different way, and in a
third way.
 Scoring for each classification:

 Immediate
success: 3
 First clue: 2
 Second clue: 1
 No success: 0

Time is measured, and successful,
unsuccessful, and aided trials were noted.
Language Control
The Verbal Fluency Task (Luk & Bialystok, 2007;
Festman et al., in press).





Subjects produce as many words as they could of one
semantic category within one minute, twice in either of
the languages.
English – food and clothing.
Hebrew – animals and body parts.
Instructions are given in alternating languages
Degree of language control: the ratio between the
number of CSs and the number of words.
2. The Bilingual Picture Naming Task (Hernandez
et al., 2001, Festman et al., in press; Biran & Friedmann,
2005).
 Name pictures of objects in English (L1; 20), and
Hebrew (L2; 20). High frequency words were chosen
excluding cognates and compounds.
 Order of presentation: two Hebrew words (blue
background), and two English words (yellow
background).

Errors are retested in the end to check
familiarity with the items.

Child is recorded and transcribed.