Latinos, Bilingualism and More: What Speech-Language Pathologists Should Know

1. Latinos, Bilingualism and More: What Speech-Language Pathologists Should Know Paul H. Matthews, Ph.D. October 2006

2. Special Education Issues • Latino students are over-represented in programs for students with disabilities nationally • Generally under-represented in Georgia • WHY? • 12.7% of US Latinos aged 6-21 are reported to have a speech or language impairment (2001)

3. What Do We Know about Bilingualism? • Challenge in defining “bilingualism” because depends on MANY factors, including: age of acquisition, functional ability, relationship between languages, context of acquisition, stages in life, circumstances leading to bilingualism. (Valdes & Figueroa) • Parental attitudes and language use also important.

4. “Language Loss” • Bilinguals usually have a dominant language; balanced bilingualism is rare • L1 can be lost, esp. when submerged into L2 • Influences: • language status, • domains of use, • size of language community, • school language, • media, • birth order and family roles, • gender, • peer interactions, etc.

5. “Language Loss” • Language attrition also occurs, where L1 is not lost but no progress is being made. • Declining use of L1 due to social and envir. pressures may look similar to language disorders: • decreased use of complex clauses, • lexical loss, • deletion of morphological markers or regularization of irregulars, • syntactic transfer

6. Bilingual ≠ 2 Monolinguals! • Bilingualism is qualitatively different from monolingualism • Different brain organization (esp. early bilingualism), different competencies, different needs: must look at individual holistically • L2 knowledge may actually change use & judgments of syntax in L1 • Differences in speed and skill on different tasks • “Multicompetence” (Cook)

7. Difference and Disorder • Bilinguals often slower in first producing speech, but then “catch up” rapidly and often surpass English-only peers • Slower response times may be due to bilingualism rather than a specific language impairment (SLI). Words may be mediated initially through L1 lexicon, then eventually directly through concepts. • Transfer of some ‘rules’ from one language to another—e.g., mandatory use of subject pronouns; word order cues versus verb agreement cues.

8. Difference and Disorder: Lexicon • Total vocabulary of bilingual children at a given age is generally the same as for monolingual children, but is distributed across 2 languages: • Total Vocabulary= Language A + Language B • Total Conceptual Vocabulary = Language A + Language B – translation equivalents • One study found an average of 30% of translation equivalents in vocabulary for toddlers who are simultaneous bilinguals, less for kids who have separate domains of use

9. Difference and Disorder: Lexicon • Apparently, up until a critical mass is reached, amount of input determines vocabulary, and after that no difference between kids in English-only and bilingual programs in English vocabulary • Input correlates especially for content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) but not for function words (articles, prepositions, etc.)

10. Difference and Disorder: Phonology & Morphology • Phonemic differences • Allophones like /j/ /dz/ /sh/ • Distinct phonemes like trilled and regular r • More phonemes in English, esp. for vowels • Different morphophonology • Word-initial s+consonant -> /es/ • Non-standard dialects come into play, both in Spanish and in English • Caribbean deletion of /s/ at end of syllable • Word choice variable based on country • Morphology problems may be language acquisition issue rather than disability (e.g. –s or –ed left off) • Prepositions: In Spanish, different prepositions used, plus verbs may not use preposition (e.g., se bajó)

11. Difference and Disorder: Fluency, Discourse • Code-switching is sometimes misdiagnosed as stuttering: processing demands • Stuttering never shown in only 1 of 2 languages • No evidence of more frequent code-switching for SLI • Cultural norms too—e.g.: • less reliance on known-answer questions • less frequent use of running narrative of activity • importance of respect • topic-associative discourse

12. Assessment Issues & Recommendations • “Examine aspects of each speech and language under various conditions with different interlocutors and then examine direction and rate of speech and language change • Examine variations in performance and error types • Understand the circumstances for acquisition, including the nature and rate of input and output • Obtain a detailed language history noting input and output” (Goldstein, 2004, pp. 7-8)

13. Assessment Issues & Recommendations • Need to assess across both languages and different domains • Testing by bilingual personnel • Language “dominance” is not a sufficient determination for testing • “Standardized” tests are likely not normed on this population, and even ones geared towards bilinguals may not account for the wide variation in “bilinguals” • Current tests inadequate, but no good solutions

14. Assessment Issues & Recommendations • Vocabulary tests that are based on item difficulty are problematic, as are frequency of occurrence across dialect of Spanish • Semantic and MLU complexity measures usually different across languages • Can use parents as resource, e.g., comparing to older siblings and L1 to L2 • Parental concern about speech/language problems, coupled with number of grammatical errors per sentence were best predictors of SLI (Restrepo): 0.18 errors per sentence was cutoff.

15. Assessment Issues & Recommendations • Some areas of SLI for Spanish speakers: • Article errors (el/la) • gender agreement • clitic pronouns (indirect object & direct object pronouns) • verb agreement errors • Need 95% of vocabulary items to be able to infer meaning of unknown words. So high-frequency words should be intervention targets.

16. Vocabulary Development • Free Voluntary Reading Campaigns • Set target, base on choice & variety • Reading Aloud • 4-5 days/week, in person or on tape • Include pre-, during-, and post-reading talks • Word Studies • Finding patterns, principles, relationships • Semantic families, structural families • Tiered Vocabulary chart: everybody / educated people / experts– show how words used differently

17. Vocabulary Development • Effective Vocabulary Instruction (e.g., lists) • Teacher provides description or example • Students restate in own words • Students create nonlinguistic representation • Periodic activities to help add to knowledge • Periodic peer discussions of terms • Periodic games to play with terms (Marzano, 2004)

18. Vocabulary Development • Vocabulary Instruction for ELLs • Repeat chorally, in sub-groups, individually. Teacher acts out, doodles, or gives example • Write on board one at a time, pointing out patterns, relationships to known words. Students also repeat aloud again. • In groups, students define in own words and share • Students look up and write down dictionary definition and write original sentences (Parker)

19. For More Information • Genesee, Fred, Paradis, Johanne, & Crago, Martha B. (2004). Dual language development and disorders: A handbook on bilingualism and second language learning. Communication and language intervention series, Vol. 11. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing Co. • Goldstein, Brian A. (Ed.) (2004). Bilingual language development & disorders in Spanish-English speakers. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing Co. • http://www.glc.k12.ga.us/pandp/esol/tguide/tg-19.htmGeorgia Learning Connections: ESOL teacher’s guide to SST and Special Education referrals