Dynamic Assessment of Word Learning to Diagnose Developmental Language Disorder in French-Speaking Monolingual and Bilingual Children

Abstract

Dynamic assessment (DA), which evaluates the learning process rather than static knowledge, has been found to be effective in diagnosing developmental language disorder (DLD) in English-speaking bilingual children. We present three studies that examine whether a French dynamic word learning task can distinguish caseload children with DLD from control children with typical development (TD). Forty-eight monolingual and 69 bilingual French-speaking children, aged four to nine, were required to learn three to six non-words and their semantic characteristics. DA consisted of three phases: (1) a teaching phase in which non-words were taught to the child; (2) an immediate test phase, with graduated prompts, in which children were required to identify and produce the target words and their semantic features; and (3) a delayed test phase. Global results indicated that there were no differences between monolingual and bilingual TD children on the DA whereas there were differences on the static assessment of vocabulary knowledge: bilinguals performed less well than monolinguals. In addition, DA differentiated control and caseload monolingual children. Further work is needed to develop a dynamic word learning task, administered in one session, which can even more accurately differentiate TD and DLD bilingual children.

A new dynamic word learning task to diagnose language disorder in French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children

“…Numerous studies have evaluated word learning using a DA approach (40,(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)(68)(69)(70)(71). Kapantzoglou et al (40) assessed twentyeight Spanish-English bilingual children with low SES.…”

“…As for French-speaking children, Matrat et al ( 71 ) recently reported on three studies that used a word-learning task based on Kapantzoglou et al ( 40 ) and Hasson et al ( 65 ). In the first study, they found that bilinguals with TD performed less well than monolinguals on static measures of vocabulary knowledge but not on dynamic measures.…”

L’évaluation dynamique du langage oral chez l’enfant : études pilotes

“…Les résultats détaillés peuvent être consultés dans l'article princeps (Matrat et al, 2022) qui est en libre accès. Ainsi, le lecteur intéressé pourra prendre connaissance des analyses et des résultats statistiques exhaustifs, résultats que nous résumons ci-dessous.…”

Remote Screening for Developmental Language Disorder in Bilingual Children: Preliminary Validation in Spanish–Italian Speaking Preschool Children

“…Contrastingly, other studies indicate that bilingual TD children also show difficulties in this task [50]. Moreover, consecutive bilingual children seem to perform worse than both monolinguals and simultaneous bilingual children in fast mapping tasks [42]. Kan and Kohnert [51] point to bilingual children's learning potential for such tasks in their L1 (first or family language) being higher than in their L2 (second or societal language).…”

“…When neither knowledge of both languages of the child nor computerised solutions are available, static vocabulary tasks in only one of the languages spoken appear to be insufficient compared to Dynamic Assessment (DA, [42]), which is considered an appropriate and feasible diagnostic tool for DLD in bilingual children [43,44]. DA targets children's language learning potential for the acquisition of new words, applying "test-teach-retest" procedures [45] and systematically providing and recording feedback [46].…”