Toward the Standardization of the BVL_RU: An Instrument for Speech and Language Assessment of Russian-speaking Children

The Battery for the assessment of speech and language development in children from 4 to 12 years (BVL_4-12; [1]) was originally developed for Italian-speaking children and currently is under adaptation into several European languages including Russian. The BVL_4-12 consists of three parts and includes tasks assessing oral production, comprehension and repetition skills in children. This article describes the process of adaptation of the BVL_4-12 into Russia and focuses on the instructions’ translation and standardization. It presents the results of the tasks instructions’ clarity evaluation by an expert panel including Russian-speaking specialists constantly working with children of a target age in Russia and Italy (N = 7) and a cohort of children from 4.06 to10.10 including monolinguals with typical language development, children previously diagnosed with primary language impairment (PLI) and heritage Russian speakers (N = 84). Overall, 10 task instructions were judged as absolutely clear and 5 task instructions were somewhat unclear to some of the participants. Further analysis ofthe age of the participants who rated the instructions as ‘unclear’ was performed. Some of the youngest participants, whose age did not exceed 6.10, found that the instructions for the following tasks were not clear: phonological fluency; sentence completion; grammatical judgments; idiom comprehension, and comprehension of linguistic prosody. However, the minimum inter-rater agreement among the sample was reached. The potential explanation of the results of the study is proposed in the Discussion section. Keywords: language assessment, Russian, children, SLI, task instructions

Cognitive and language intervention in primary language impairment: Studying the effectiveness of working memory training and direct language intervention on expansion of grammar and working memory capacities

Deficits in working memory (WM) have been reported repeatedly in children with primary language impairment (PLI) and may significantly contribute to the language difficulties that are experienced by these children. However, interventional studies within the field regarding the cross-domain effects between working memory and language are limited, and their results are contradictory. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to explore whether WM training can improve the WM skills of these children and whether the effects of training could be transferred to language, specifically to grammatical skills. The second aim of this study was to investigate the near and far transfer effects of direct language intervention on grammar and WM, respectively, as this is the most (and sometimes the only) considered treatment programme for children with PLI. Using a single-subject experimental design, ten 6–8-year-old children with PLI received WM training and language intervention, respectively, in two consecutive phases of study. The treatment gains on targeted areas and generalization to the other domain were tracked by repeated measurements of some WM and language tasks and were completed by a set of pre- and post-intervention measures. Regarding the results, it appears that if sufficient time is spent on WM training, WM-related skills improve and the effects also transferred to morpho-syntactic language skills. However, a cross-domain effect in the reverse direction is questionable. Though the language intervention programme resulted in good gains in grammatical skills, it did not improve participant performance in WM tasks, with the exception of non-word repetition (NWR). The observed participant gains in non-word repetition were likely due to the improvement in higher-level linguistic processing, rather than the actual enhancement of WM skills.

The Receptive–Expressive Gap in English Narratives of Spanish–English Bilingual Children With and Without Language Impairment

Purpose First, we sought to extend our knowledge of second language (L2) receptive compared to expressive narrative skills in bilingual children with and without primary language impairment (PLI). Second, we sought to explore whether narrative receptive and expressive performance in bilingual children's L2 differed based on the type of contextual support. Method In a longitudinal group study, 20 Spanish–English bilingual children with PLI were matched by sex, age, nonverbal IQ score, and language exposure to 20 bilingual peers with typical development and administered the Test of Narrative Language (Gillam & Pearson, 2004) in English (their L2) at kindergarten and first grade. Results Standard scores were significantly lower for bilingual children with PLI than those without PLI. An L2 receptive–expressive gap existed for bilingual children with PLI at kindergarten but dissipated by first grade. Using single pictures during narrative generation compared to multiple pictures during narrative generation or no pictures during narrative retell appeared to minimize the presence of a receptive–expressive gap. Conclusions In early stages of L2 learning, bilingual children with PLI have an L2 receptive–expressive gap, but their typical development peers do not. Using a single picture during narrative generation might be advantageous for this population because it minimizes a receptive–expressive gap.

Effects of divided input on bilingual children with language impairment

Aims and objectives: We compare the performance of 600 bilingual children with and without language impairment relative to their level of current English input and output (EIO). Children were tested in both Spanish and English on measures of morphosyntax and semantics. Our aim was to examine whether children’s language performance was differentially affected by the level of EIO and/or language ability. Methodology: Participants were drawn from three different studies of bilingual language impairment where children between the ages of 5 and 10 years were tested using a standardized test of morphosyntax and semantics in both languages. Standard scores were compared for each language in each domain. Data and analysis: Multivariate regression was used to compare main effects of ability (children with typical language development versus children with language impairment) and interactions with EIO. This analysis was followed by a comparison of EIO across the four language measures. Findings/conclusions: There were main effects of language impairment status and EIO. There were ability differences in slope for two measures (English semantics and Spanish morphosyntax), where children with language impairment had a flatter slope as related to EIO compared to children with typical development. For Spanish semantics and English morphosyntax, slopes relative to EIO were similar, although children with language impairment scored lower than those with typical development. Originality: We observed how children with and without language impairment performed on semantics and morphosyntax tasks relative to their EIO. Implications: The similar slopes across language measures of children with and without language impairment suggest that there is no disadvantage to divided input by ability. Where there were differences by ability, children with language impairment showed a flatter slope relative to their typically developing peers, suggesting that bilingual children with primary language impairment (PLI) may be somewhat advantaged relative to more monolingual children with PLI.

Language Sample Analysis and Elicitation Technique Effects in Bilingual Children With and Without Language Impairment

Purpose This study examined whether the language sample elicitation technique (i.e., storytelling and story-retelling tasks with pictorial support) affects lexical diversity (D), grammaticality (grammatical errors per communication unit [GE/CU]), sentence length (mean length of utterance in words [MLUw]), and sentence complexity (subordination index [SI]), which are commonly used indices for diagnosing primary language impairment in Spanish–English-speaking children in the United States. Method Twenty bilingual Spanish–English-speaking children with typical language development and 20 with primary language impairment participated in the study. Four analyses of variance were conducted to evaluate the effect of language elicitation technique and group on D, GE/CU, MLUw, and SI. Also, 2 discriminant analyses were conducted to assess which indices were more effective for story retelling and storytelling and their classification accuracy across elicitation techniques. Results D, MLUw, and SI were influenced by the type of elicitation technique, but GE/CU was not. The classification accuracy of language sample analysis was greater in story retelling than in storytelling, with GE/CU and D being useful indicators of language abilities in story retelling and GE/CU and SI in storytelling. Conclusion Two indices in language sample analysis may be sufficient for diagnosis in 4- to 5-year-old bilingual Spanish–English-speaking children.

Nonword Repetition and Sentence Imitation as Clinical Markers for Primary Language Impairment in bilingual French-English- and English-French-speaking children in Northern Ontario

Studies indicate that nonword repetition and sentence imitation are useful tools when assessing bilingual children. Bilingual children with primary language impairment (PLI) typically score lower on these two tasks than their typically developing counterparts. Studies show that bilingual children are not disadvantaged during nonword repetition if they have limited language exposure. However, since sentence imitation tasks are constructed with words from the target language, it is expected that it would be more influenced by previous language exposure. The goal of this article will be to review the influence of bilingual exposure on both tasks. This review provides the theoretical background for future studies that will compare the accuracy of both tasks when identifying PLI in bilingual children.

Executive Function in Preschoolers with Primary Language Impairment

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether preschoolers with primary language impairment (PLI) show deficits in executive function (EF) compared with their peers with typical development (TD) when inhibition, updating, and mental-set shifting are examined using both linguistically based and visually based tasks. Method Twenty-two 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers with PLI and 30 preschoolers with TD completed 2 sets of computerized EF tasks: 3 that were linguistically based and 3 that were visually based. This permitted us to test the hypothesis that poor performance on EF tasks in preschoolers with PLI results from impaired language rather than impaired EF. Results The PLI group scored significantly lower than the TD group on linguistically and visually based updating tasks and mental-set shifting tasks. The PLI and TD groups did not differ significantly for accuracy or response time on linguistically and visually based inhibition tasks. Conclusion Results suggest that preschool-age children with PLI have domain-general EF deficits in updating and mental-set shifting but not inhibition deficits, as measured by our tasks.