Journal Article

Morphological Errors in Spanish-Speaking Bilingual Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorders

Fulcher-Rood, Katrina, Barr, Christopher, Pérez-Leroux, Ana Teresa, Castilla-Earls, Anny

2021

Overview

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to find morphological markers with good diagnostic accuracy to identify developmental language disorders (DLD) in Spanish-English bilingual children. Method: The participants in this study included 66 Spanish-English bilingual children between the ages of 4;0 and 6;11 (years; months) with (n = 33) and without DLD (n = 33). We employed a comprehensive production task in Spanish to elicit morphological structures that have been previously found to be problematic for Spanish-speaking children with DLD. These structures included elements of nominal morphology (articles, direct object pronouns, adjectives, and plurals) and verbal morphology (verbs and the subjunctive mood). Logistic regression was used in this study to find a set of grammatical structures that most accurately predicted group membership. Results: Spanish-English bilingual children with and without DLD significantly differed from each other in their accurate production of articles, clitics, adjectives, verbs, and the subjunctive mood. Clitics, verbs, and the subjunctive mood in isolation had adequate diagnostic accuracy. A combination of verb and subjective mood accuracy best predicted group membership in this study (sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 91%). Conclusion: In addition to clitics, verbs, and the subjunctive mood, both elements of verbal morphology should be considered grammatical markers of DLD in Spanish-English bilingual children.

• Publisher: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
• Subject: Accuracy / Adjectives / Analysis / Bilingualism / Child / Child Language / Child, Preschool / Children / Clitics / Complications and side effects / Developmental Disabilities / Diseases / Disorders / Emotions / English (Second Language) / English language / Error Patterns / Errors / Female / Form Classes (Languages) / Grammar / Grammatical mood / Grammatical number / Humans / Infant / Language / Language Development Disorders - physiopathology / Language disorders / Language Impairments / Language Skills / Language Tests / Linguistics / Male / Membership / Monolingualism / Morphology / Morphology (Languages) / Multilingualism / Production / Regression Analysis / Spanish language / Spanish Speaking / Specific language impairment / Speech-language pathology / Subjectivity / Subjunctive / Subjunctive mood / Syntax / Verbs / Young Children