No abstract

The purposes of this article are (a) to discuss issues related to the selection and development of language assessment procedures for children who speak Spanish and English based on spontaneous language samples and (b) to show how available procedures can be applied to research and clinical aims with these children. Sociolinguistic influences in the language performance of Spanish-speaking children, including patterns of language shift, differences in the amount of exposure to each of a bilingual's languages, and contextual effects of different language-learning environments, are discussed. Methodological issues and effects of codeswitching and dialect are examined concerning use of the Developmental Assessment of Spanish Grammar (DASG), mean length of response in words (MLR-w), mean length of terminable unit (MLTU), and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU-m). Measures of Spanish grammar with diagnostic potential are proposed. Clinical suggestions for the language assessment of Spanish-speaking children with different levels of English proficiency and research implications are discussed.

Phonetic and phonological analyses were performed on spontaneous speech samples of six 2–year–old monolingual Puerto Rican Spanish-learning children. The analyses showed a number of patterns of sound usage similar to those found in English-learning children of the same age, as well as children from other linguistic backgrounds. These findings add support to the claim that certain universal patterns exist in phonological development. However, a number of patterns were also observed which seemed to be accounted for by the target language being acquired. Similarities and differences among the individual children are also discussed.

The present investigation sought to evaluate patterns of article use in a group of monolingual Spanishspeaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). In particular, because of conflicting results reported in previous studies, it was of interest to discern specific types of nontarget responses and how these corresponded to what has been reported in other Spanish-speaking children with SLI. Eleven children with SLI and 11 age-matched peers participated in the study. Three different spontaneous speech samples were gathered from each child. In addition, an experimental task that assessed the children's use of articles with a variety of nouns was also administered to the children. The results of the study for both spontaneous speech and experimental data indicated that the children with SLI performed significantly poorer in their use of Spanish articles than their age-matched peers. Most of the nontarget responses consisted of omission of the target article. In contrast to a previous study by Restrepo and Gutiérrez-Clellen, the children did not present with deficits in noun phrase gender agreement. The gender errors that were observed appeared to be due to difficulties accessing the correct article form and not due to deficits in knowledge of the gender agreement paradigm. Possible theoretical explanations were explored suggesting that both processing and linguistic explanations, in particular optionality of determiners, could explain the observed patterns. Reasons for cross-study differences in error patterns are suggested, including relative phonological skill and language learning environment.

In this paper, preliminary longitudinal data on the effects of first language loss on verb inflection and use by two Spanish-speaking siblings who were in an English-speaking environment were gathered. Both children were followed for approximately two years and were video-recorded while interacting with a familiar Spanish-speaking adult. Spontaneous Spanish speech samples were used to monitor patterns of L1 loss in the children's use of verbal lexemes and inflections. Bybee's (1985,1995) lexical morphology model was followed to predict the course of L1 loss. In particular, the concepts of semantic relevancy and input frequency, and their effects on verbal inflection in a child L1 loss context were examined. Results in general follow the predictions made by Bybee's model. Specifically, less semantically relevant distinctions, such as person/number inflection, appear to be more vulnerable to loss. Frequency of use also appears to impact the relative strength of verbal schemas. Nevertheless, individual differences were noted in the degree of loss observed. Directions for future research in the area of verbal morphology and language loss in children are suggested.