Disentangling Language Disorder and Bilingualism in Children with Developmental Language Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from Writing.
Eleni Peristeri, Ianthi Maria Tsimpli
PMID 36087157WHAT IT FOUND
Bilingual children with ASD misplaced stress marks and punctuation far more often than peers with DLD, who instead omitted them and made more spelling errors.
Vocabulary size predicted spelling accuracy in both groups, while Greek exposure predicted punctuation use.
Key findings
01Children with ASD made significantly more errors in placing stress diacritics and punctuation marks (misplacement and superfluous addition) than children with DLD or typically developing peers.
02Children with DLD made significantly more overall spelling errors, particularly grammatical and orthographic errors, and more omissions of stress and punctuation marks than the other groups.
03Expressive vocabulary scores were positively correlated with writing performance, with lower vocabulary linked to more spelling and stress errors, while higher exposure to Greek was linked to fewer punctuation errors.
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 sample size (28 per group) was small, which may limit the statistical power to detect subtle differences. Language exposure was measured by the number of interlocutors speaking each language rather than the actual time spent hearing or speaking the language, which may not fully capture bilingual experience. The study did not assess theory-of-mind or executive functions, which could influence writing performance, particularly in the ASD group. Participants were all Albanian-Greek bilinguals, so findings may not generalize to other language pairs or orthographies.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. No other conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that bilingualism causes these writing errors. The study found that language exposure and vocabulary size, not bilingual status itself, were the key predictors of writing accuracy. Also, do not interpret the ASD group's stress and punctuation errors as a lack of knowledge; they often knew the rules but failed to integrate them correctly into the written discourse.