Core vocabulary in the narratives of bilingual children with and without language impairment.
Prarthana Shivabasappa, Elizabeth D Peña, Lisa M Bedore
PMID 28937305WHAT IT FOUND
Bilingual children with language impairment used fewer common story words than peers, and in kindergarten they said those words less often.
The difference between groups was larger by first grade.
Key findings
01After controlling for total words, the average core word score was 26.27 for typically developing children and 22.53 for children with language impairment, out of 30.
02In kindergarten, children with language impairment produced core words less often than typically developing peers, with adjusted occurrence means of 211.88 and 231.29.
03In first grade, typically developing children used more core words than children with language impairment at both time points, with adjusted means of 27.16, 23.46 and 21.59.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The main comparison included only 15 children with language impairment and 15 typically developing peers, so it shows a group pattern rather than a reliable diagnostic rule for any one child. The analysis counted word use and frequency, but it did not check whether the words were grammatically correct in sentences. The children were Spanish-English bilinguals, and the stories were wordless frog picture books, so the results may not apply to other languages, everyday conversation, or classroom talk. Language impairment status was based on expert review of first-grade results, not a single test score. Some normative children narrated only one of the stories.
Declared interests
The authors reported no potential conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that bilingual children with language impairment have no knowledge of common story words. The study counted words used in narratives, not grammatical accuracy, and both groups used many of the same frequent nouns and verbs.