Language performance of sequential bilinguals on an Irish and English sentence repetition task

Antonijević, Stanislava; Durham, Ruth; Chonghaile, Íde Ní

doi:10.1075/lab.15026.ant

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Furthermore, bilingual children scored lower on syntax as compared to their monolingual peers. This is in line with previous studies showing that bilingual children score lower on SRep tasks when compared to monolingual peers (Antonijevic et al, 2017; Fleckstein et al, 2018; Komeili & Marshall, 2013; Meir, 2017; among many others). Yet, similarly to previous research (Komeili & Marshall, 2013; Meir, 2017), our study showed that the negative effect of bilingualism disappeared once vocabulary scores were controlled for.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…As for bilingual children, previous studies found that bilinguals with TLD have lower syntactic abilities compared to monolingual children with TLD, as measured by SRep tasks (Antonijevic, Durham, & Chonghaile, 2017; Fleckstein, Prévost, Tuller, Sizaret, & Zebib, 2018; Komeili & Marshall, 2013; Meir, 2017). Yet, this negative effect of bilingualism on SRep tasks disappears when vocabulary scores are controlled for (Komeili & Marshall, 2013; Meir, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Syntactic abilities and verbal memory in monolingual and bilingual children with High Functioning Autism (HFA)

Meir

Novogrodsky

2019

First Language

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The aim of the current study was two-fold. First, it evaluated the influence of bilingualism on syntactic abilities and verbal memory of children with High Functioning Autism (HFA). Second, it explored the relationship between syntactic abilities and verbal memory of children with HFA and typical language development (TLD). Eighty-six monolingual Hebrew-speaking and bilingual Russian–Hebrew speaking children aged 4;6–9;2 years participated: 28 with HFA (14 monolingual and 14 bilingual) and 58 with TLD (28 monolingual and 30 bilingual). Syntactic abilities were assessed using Sentence Repetition tasks (bilingual children were tested in both languages). Verbal memory was evaluated using Forward Digit Span for verbal short-term memory and Backward Digit Span for verbal working memory. As a group, children with HFA scored lower than their TLD peers on measures of syntactic abilities and verbal memory. However, some children with HFA, monolingual and bilingual, showed intact syntactic abilities, while others scored at-risk for Language Disorder (LD). Importantly, syntactic abilities in children with HFA were not associated with their verbal memory skills. Furthermore, no differences in verbal memory were found between children with HFA who were at-risk for LD and children with no risk. Bilingualism did not influence Sentence Repetition scores when vocabulary was controlled for, and it did not affect verbal memory scores. The study demonstrated that (1) syntactic difficulties in children with HFA are not attributable to deficient verbal memory; moreover (2), regardless of languages status, children with HFA at-risk for LD exhibit impaired syntax similarly to those reported in the literature for children with Developmental Language Disorder. Finally, the findings show that bilingualism affects children with TLD and HFA similarly, demonstrating that bilingualism does not impede language and cognitive development in children with HFA.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Syntactic abilities and verbal memory in monolingual and bilingual children with High Functioning Autism (HFA)

Meir

Novogrodsky

2019

First Language

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“…Another set of studies using LITMUS-SR tasks investigated TD bilingual children with the goal of addressing both the differences between the children's L1 and L2 and the effects of internal and external factors on the children's performances. Antonijevic et al (2017) designed an Irish LITMUS-SR task and used it with bilingual children with English as L1 and Irish as L2. The English and the Irish tasks included sentences that were grouped around three levels of complexity and measured different sentence structures and types of errors.…”

Section: Using Sr Tasks With Bilingual Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sentence Repetition in Farsi-English Bilingual Children

Komeili¹,

Marinis²,

Tavakoli³

et al. 2020

Journal of the European Second Language Association

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The current study aimed to create an assessment that can be used in the future to measure the language abilities of Farsi-speaking children in a clinical setting. A Farsi sentence-repetition task was created that included structures organised into three levels of complexity from least to most complex. Twenty typically developing Farsi-English bilingual children between the ages of 6;3-11;6 were recruited from Farsi schools in Toronto, Canada. Significant differences on the participants' performance among the three levels were found with the lowest performance in the most complex sentences and the highest performance in the least complex ones. Specific structures appeared to be more challenging than others within each level of complexity. The children's decreasing performance with increasing complexity and the evidence that specific structures are challenging within each level make the Farsi sentence repetition task a promising tool for assessing the language skills of Farsi-English speaking children.

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“…Sentence Repetition tasks are widely used to assess morpho-syntactic abilities of monolingual and bilingual children. Sentence Repetition tasks have been shown to be highly effective in discriminating children with typical and atypical language development in monolingual and bilingual populations (e.g., Conti-Ramsden et al, 2001 ; Archibald and Joanisse, 2009 ; Klem et al, 2015 ; Meir et al, 2016 ; Antonijevic et al, 2017 ; Gavarró, 2017 ; Hamann and Abed Ibrahim, 2017 ; Theodorou et al, 2017 ; Fleckstein et al, 2018 ; among many others). In the following subsections, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the Weaker Language of unbalanced bilinguals are discussed as compared to BB and unbalanced bilinguals in the Dominant Language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morpho-Syntactic Abilities of Unbalanced Bilingual Children: A Closer Look at the Weaker Language

Meir

2018

Front. Psychol.

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Previous studies evaluating morpho-syntactic abilities in the Weaker Language of unbalanced bilingual children are scarce; and they bring inconclusive evidence on the nature of the Weaker Language development. The current study looked into morpho-syntactic profiles of bilingual Russian–Hebrew speaking children in the Weaker Language [the Weaker Heritage Language (HL-Russian) and the Weaker Societal Language (SL-Hebrew)] as compared to balanced bilinguals, unbalanced bilinguals in the Dominant Language and bilinguals with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Four groups of bilingual children aged 5;5–6;5 participated: unbalanced bilinguals with the Weaker HL-Russian and the Dominant SL-Hebrew (HL-weak: n = 39), unbalanced bilinguals with the Weaker SL-Hebrew and the Dominant HL-Russian (SL-weak: n = 19); balanced bilinguals (BB: n = 38), and bilinguals with SLI (biSLI: n = 23). Children’s morpho-syntactic abilities in both languages were investigated using LITMUS (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) Sentence Repetition Tasks (based on Marinis and Armon-Lotem, 2015). Quantitative analysis of morpho-syntactic abilities showed that unbalanced bilinguals scored lower in the Weaker Language as compared to balanced bilinguals and unbalanced bilinguals in the Dominant Language, yet, higher than bilinguals with SLI. Error patterns were similar across bilingual groups with TLD and could be traced to cross-linguistic influence. By contrast, error profiles of unbalanced bilinguals in the Weaker Language and bilinguals with SLI bore fundamental differences. Whereas unbalanced bilinguals in the Weaker Language opted for complex structures, relying on the available resources from the Dominant Language; bilinguals with SLI simplified complex syntactic structures. To conclude, the study shows that the Weaker Language of unbalanced bilinguals with TLD develop qualitatively similarly to the languages of balanced bilinguals and the Dominant Language in unbalanced bilinguals, albeit delayed or influenced by the Dominant Language to a larger extent. Conversely, the study brings evidence that linguistic profiles of unbalanced bilinguals with TLD in the Weaker Language and bilinguals with SLI differ, pointing at a deviant pattern of acquisition in children with SLI.

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Language performance of sequential bilinguals on an Irish and English sentence repetition task

Cited by 11 publications

References 40 publications

Syntactic abilities and verbal memory in monolingual and bilingual children with High Functioning Autism (HFA)

Syntactic abilities and verbal memory in monolingual and bilingual children with High Functioning Autism (HFA)

Sentence Repetition in Farsi-English Bilingual Children

Morpho-Syntactic Abilities of Unbalanced Bilingual Children: A Closer Look at the Weaker Language

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