Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:44:52.910Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sentence repetition with bilinguals with and without DLD: Differential effects of memory, vocabulary, and exposure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2020

Amy S. Pratt Open the ORCID record for Amy S. Pratt [Opens in a new window] ,
Elizabeth D. Peña  and
Lisa M. Bedore
Amy S. Pratt*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Elizabeth D. Peña
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Lisa M. Bedore
Affiliation:
Temple University
*
Address for correspondence: Amy S. Pratt, Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Though previous research has shown that sentence repetition (SR) is an informative tool for identifying developmental language disorder (DLD) in bilinguals, little is understood about the skills that underlie children's performance on the task. With a population of 136 school-age Spanish–English bilinguals, the present study explores the contribution of verbal short-term memory, vocabulary, and language exposure on two SR tasks developed in English and Spanish. Results indicate that these skills may differentially underlie SR in typical versus disordered populations. Whereas the strongest predictors of English SR performance for typical bilingual children were expressive vocabulary and language exposure, bilingual children with DLD relied most heavily on verbal short-term memory. ROC curves to determine the classification accuracy of SR were conducted. Classification accuracy was excellent, with area under the curve reaching .92 for the English SR task and .87 for Spanish SR.

Keywords

bilingual developmentlanguage disorderssentence repetition
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , March 2021 , pp. 305 - 318
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, AM and Gathercole, SE (2000) Limitations in working memory: Implications for language development. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 35, 95–116.Google ScholarPubMed
Alameda, JR and Cuetos Vega, F (1995) Diccionario de frecuencias de las unidades lingüísticas del castellano. Oviedo: Universidad de Oviedo.Google Scholar
Allen, R and Hulme, C (2006) Speech and language processing mechanisms in verbal serial recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 64–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alloway, TP and Gathercole, SE (2005) The role of sentence recall in reading and language skills of children with learning difficulties. Learning and Individual Differences, 15, 271–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Speech & Hearing Association. (2017) Self-identify as a bilingual service provider. ASHA Leader, 22, 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anaya, JB, Peña, ED and Bedore, LM (2018) Conceptual scoring and classification accuracy of vocabulary testing in bilingual children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49, 85–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Archibald, LMD and Joanisse, MF (2009) On the sensitivity and specificity of nonword repetition and sentence recall to language and memory impairments in children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 899–914.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Armon-Lotem, S (2017) Disentangling bilingualism from SLI: dissociating exposure and input. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 33–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armon-Lotem, S, de Jong, J and Meir, N (2015) Assessing Multilingual Children: Disentangling Bilingualism from Language Impairment. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armon-Lotem, S and Meir, N (2016) Diagnostic accuracy of repetition tasks for the identification of specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual children: Evidence from Russian and Hebrew. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 51, 715–731.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, AD (2000) The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 417–423.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, AD, Hitch, GJ and Allen, RJ (2009) Working memory and binding in sentence recall. Journal of Memory and Language, 61, 438–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baddeley, AD (2012) Working memory: Theories, models, and controversies. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, AD and Wilson, BA (2002) Prose recall and amnesia: Implications for the structure of working memory. Neuropsychologia, 40, 1737–1743.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bedore, LM and Peña, ED (2008) Assessment of bilingual children for identification of language impairment: Current findings and implications for practice. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 11, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedore, LM, Peña, ED, Anaya, JB, Nieto, R, Lugo-Neris, MJ and Baron, A (2018) Understanding disorder within variation: Production of English grammatical forms by English language learners. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49, 277–291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bedore, LM, Peña, ED, Fiestas, C and Lugo-Neris, MJ (2020) Language and literacy together: Supporting grammatical development in dual language learners with risk for language and learning difficulties. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51, 282–297.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bedore, LM, Peña, ED, Griffin, ZM and Hixon, JG (2016) Effects of age of English exposure, current input/output, and grade on bilingual language performance. Journal of Child Language, 43, 687–706.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bedore, LM, Peña, ED, Summers, CL, Boerger, KM, Resendiz, MD, Greene, K, Bohman, TM and Gillam, RB (2012) The measure matters: Language dominance profiles across measures in Spanish–English bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 616–629.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benjamini, Y and Hochberg, Y (1995) Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological), 57, 289–300.Google Scholar
Blom, E and Paradis, J (2013) Past tense production by English second language learners with and without language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bohman, TM, Bedore, LM, Peña, ED, Mendez-Perez, A and Gillam, RB (2010) What you hear and what you say: Language performance in Spanish English bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13, 325–344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bracken, BA and McCallum, RS (1998) Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test. Chicago: Riverside Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Briscoe, J, Bishop, DVM and Frazier Norbury, C (2001) Phonological processing, language, and literacy: A comparison of children with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss and those with Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 329–340.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brownell, R (2000) Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test. Novato: Academic Therapy.Google Scholar
Brownell, R (2001) Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test – Spanish Bilingual. Novato: Academic Therapy.Google Scholar
Calderón, J (2003) Working memory in Spanish-English bilinguals with language impairment. PhD Dissertation, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Carrow, E (1974) A test using elicited imitations in assessing grammatical structure in children. The Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 39, 437–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chiat, S (2015) Nonword repetition. In Armon-Lotem, S, de Jong, J and Meir, N (eds), Methods for assessing multilingual children: Disentangling bilingualism from language impairment. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 125–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G, Botting, N and Faragher, B (2001) Psycholinguistic markers for specific language impairment (SLI). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines, 42, 741–748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dollaghan, CA and Horner, EA (2011) Bilingual language assessment: A meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54, 1077–1088.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dollaghan, C and Campbell, TF (1998) Nonword repetition and child language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 1136–1146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eadie, PA, Fey, ME, Douglas, JM and Parsons, CL (2002) Profiles of grammatical morphology and sentence imitation in children with specific language impairment and down syndrome. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 720.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ebert, KD (2014) Role of auditory non-verbal working memory in sentence repetition for bilingual children with primary language impairment. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 49, 631–636.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Everitt, A, Hannaford, P and Conti-Ramsden, G (2013) Markers for persistent specific expressive language delay in 3-4-year-olds. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 48, 534–553.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fleckstein, A, Prévost, P, Tuller, L, Sizaret, E and Zebib, R (2016) How to identify SLI in bilingual children: A study on sentence repetition in French. Language Acquisition, 25, 85–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallimore, R and Tharp, RG (1981) The interpretation of elicited sentence imitation in a standardized context. Language Learning, 31, 369–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genesee, F, Hamers, J, Lambert, WE, Mononen, L, Seitz, M and Starck, R (1978) Language processing in bilinguals. Brain and Language, 5, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, TA, Summers, C, Peña, ED, Bedore, LM, Gillam, RB and Bohman, TM (2015) The role of phonological structure and experience in bilingual children's nonword repetition performance. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 18, 551–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillam, RB and Pearson, NA (2004) Test of Narrative Language. Austin: Pro-Ed.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez–Clellen, VF and Kreiter, J (2003) Understanding child bilingual acquisition using parent and teacher reports. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 267–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez-Clellen, VF, Restrepo, MA and Simón-Cereijido, G (2006) Evaluating the discriminant accuracy of a grammatical measure with Spanish-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 1209–1223.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hair, JF, Black, WC, Babin, BJ and Anderson, RE (2014) Multivariate Data Analysis: Pearson New International Edition (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Hesketh, A and Conti-Ramsden, G (2013) Memory and language in middle childhood in individuals with a history of specific language impairment. Plos One, 8, e56314.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hollingshead, A. (1975) Four Factor Index of Social Status. New Haven, CT: Yale University.Google Scholar
Kapantzoglou, M, Thompson, MS, Gray, S and Restrepo, MA (2016) Assessing measurement invariance for Spanish sentence repetition and morphology elicitation tasks. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59, 254–266.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kidd, E, Brandt, S, Lieven, E and Tomasello, M (2007) Object relatives made easy: A cross-linguistic comparison of the constraints influencing young children's processing of relative clauses. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 860–897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klem, M, Melby-Lervåg, M, Hagtvet, B, Lyster, S.-A. H, Gustafsson, J.-E and Hulme, C (2015) Sentence repetition is a measure of children's language skills rather than working memory limitations. Developmental Science, 18, 146–154.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krishnan, S, Alcock, KJ, Mercure, E, Leech, R, Barker, E, Karmiloff-Smith, A and Dick, F (2013) Articulating novel words: Children's oromotor skills predict nonword repetition abilities. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 1800–1812.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leonard, LB (2014) Children with Specific Language Impairment. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lugo-Neris, MJ, Peña, ED, Bedore, LM and Gillam, RB (2015) Utility of a language screening measure for predicting risk for language impairment in bilinguals. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 24, 426–437.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McFarland, J, Husser, B, de Brey, C, Snyder, T, Wang, X, Wilkinson-Flicker, S, Gebrekristos, S, Zhang, J, Rathbun, A, Barmer, A, Bullock Mann, F and Hinz, S (2017) The Condition of Education 2017 (No. NCES 2017-144). Washington, DC: National Center for Educational Statistics.Google Scholar
McGee, S (2002) Simplifying likelihood ratios. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 17, 647–650.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meir, N (2017) Effects of Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and bilingualism on verbal short-term memory. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7, 301–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meir, N and Armon-Lotem, S (2017) Independent and combined effects of socioeconomic status (SES) and bilingualism on children’s vocabulary and verbal short-term memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1442.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meir, N, Walters, J and Armon-Lotem, S (2016) Disentangling SLI and bilingualism using sentence repetition tasks: the impact of L1 and L2 properties. International Journal of Bilingualism, 20, 421–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melby-Lervåg, M and Hulme, C (2010) Serial and free recall in children can be improved by training: evidence for the importance of phonological and semantic representations in immediate memory tasks. Psychological Science, 21, 1694–1700.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moll, K, Hulme, C, Nag, S and Snowling, MJ (2015) Sentence repetition as a marker of language skills in children with dyslexia. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36, 203–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newcomer, PL and Hammill, DD (2008) Test of Language Development – Primary 4 (TOLD – P4). Austin: Pro-Ed.Google Scholar
Oetting, JB, McDonald, JL, Seidel, CM and Hegarty, M (2016) Sentence recall by children with SLI across two nonmainstream dialects of English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59, 183–194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peña, ED, Bedore, LM, Gutiérrez-Clellen, VF, Iglesias, A and Goldstein, BA (2010a) Bilingual English Spanish Oral Screener (BESOS): Pre-K, 1st, and 3rd grade (Unpublished test). Austin: University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Peña, ED, Bedore, LM, Lugo-Neris, M and Albudoor, N (in press) Identifying developmental language disorder in school-age bilinguals: Semantics, grammar, and narratives. Language Assessment Quarterly.Google Scholar
Peña, ED, Bedore, LM, Gutiérrez-Clellen, VF, Iglesias, A and Goldstein, BA (2010b) Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment – Middle Extension, Experimental Version (BESA-ME) (Unpublished test). Austin: University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Peña, ED, Gutiérrez-Clellen, VF, Iglesias, A, Goldstein, B and Bedore, LM (2018) Bilingual English Spanish Assessment (BESA). Baltimore: Brookes.Google Scholar
Plante, E and Vance, R (1994) Selection of preschool language tests. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 25, 15–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polišenská, K, Chiat, S and Roy, P (2015) Sentence repetition: What does the task measure? International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 50, 106–118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Poll, GH, Miller, CA, Mainela-Arnold, E, Adams, KD, Misra, M and Park, JS (2013) Effects of children's working memory capacity and processing speed on their sentence imitation performance. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 48, 329–342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Potter, MC and Lombardi, L (1990) Regeneration in the short-term recall of sentences. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 633–654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redmond, SM (2005) Differentiating SLI from ADHD using children's sentence recall and production of past tense morphology. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 19, 109–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Restrepo, MA, Gorin, JS, Gray, S, Morgan, GP and Barona, N (2010) Development of a language impairment screener for Spanish speaking children - SSLIC: Phase 1 - Task Development. Presented at the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, Washington, DC: SREE.Google Scholar
Rice, ME and Harris, GT (2005) Comparing effect sizes in follow-up studies: ROC Area, Cohen's d, and r. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 615–620.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riches, N (2012) Sentence repetition in children with specific language impairment: An investigation of underlying mechanisms. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 47, 499–510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riches, N, Loucas, T, Baird, G, Charman, T and Simonoff, E (2010) Sentence repetition in adolescents with specific language impairments and autism: An investigation of complex syntax. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 45, 47–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seeff-Gabriel, B, Chiat, S and Dodd, B (2010) Sentence imitation as a tool in identifying expressive morphosyntactic difficulties in children with severe speech difficulties. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 45, 691–702.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Semel, E, Wiig, EH and Secord, WA (1995) Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Third Edition. San Antonio: The Psychological Corporation, Harcourt Brace & Co.Google Scholar
Simón-Cereijido, G (2017) Sentence repetition in typical and atypical Spanish-speaking preschoolers who are English Language Learners. In Auza Benavides, A and Schwartz, RG (eds), Language Development and Disorders in Spanish-speaking Children. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 205–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon-Cereijido, G and Méndez, LI (2018) Using language-specific and bilingual measures to explore lexical-grammatical links in young Latino dual-language learners. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49, 537–550.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smolík, F and Vávru, P (2014) Sentence imitation as a marker of SLI in Czech: Disproportionate impairment of verbs and clitics. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57, 837–849.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stark, RE and Tallal, P (1981) Selection of children with specific language deficits. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 46, 114–122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stokes, SF, Wong, A. M.-Y, Fletcher, P and Leonard, LB (2006) Nonword repetition and sentence repetition as clinical markers of specific language impairment: The case of Cantonese. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 219–236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Summers, C, Bohman, TM, Gillam, RB, Peña, ED and Bedore, LM (2010) Bilingual performance on nonword repetition in Spanish and English. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 45, 480–493.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thordardottir, E and Brandeker, M (2013) The effect of bilingual exposure versus language impairment on nonword repetition and sentence imitation scores. Journal of Communication Disorders, 46, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomblin, JB, Records, NL, Buckwalter, P, Zhang, X, Smith, E and O'Brien, M (1997) Prevalence of specific language impairment in kindergarten children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 1245–1260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Topbaş, S, Kaçar-Kütükçü, D and Kopkalli-Yavuz, H (2014) Performance of children on the Turkish Nonword Repetition Test: Effect of word similarity, word length, and scoring. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 28, 602–616.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tuller, L, Hamann, C, Chilla, S, Ferré, S, Morin, E, Prevost, P, Dos Santos, C, Abed Ibrahim, L and Zebib, R (2018) Identifying language impairment in bilingual children in France and in Germany. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 53, 888–904.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhoeven, L, Steenge, J, van Weerdenburg, M and van Balkom, H (2011) Assessment of second language proficiency in bilingual children with specific language impairment: a clinical perspective. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 32, 1798–1807.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Willis, CS and Gathercole, SE (2001) Phonological short-term memory contributions to sentence processing in young children. Memory, 9, 349–363.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ziethe, A, Eysholdt, U and Doellinger, M (2013) Sentence repetition and digit span: Potential markers of bilingual children with suspected SLI?. Logopedics, Phoniatrics, Vocology, 38, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: PDF

Pratt et al. supplementary material

Pratt et al. supplementary material

Download Pratt et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 398.2 KB