Narrative abilities in monolingual and dual language learning children with specific language impairment

The aim of this study was to compare narrative abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI) who are monolingual and those who are dual language learners.

The participants were 26 children with SLI, 14 monolingual English speakers and 12 dual language learners. The dual language learners were English dominant and spoke a variety of other languages in the home. The two SLI groups were compared using standardized tests and measures from two narrative samples.

Compared to the monolingual children, the dual language learners achieved lower scores on standardized tests of morphosyntax but not on measures of language form derived from the narrative samples. Both groups achieved below average scores on productivity, narrative structure, literate language, and language form measures from the narrative samples.

The data suggest that narrative samples can be a sensitive way to assess the language skills of dual language learners with specific language impairment. Furthermore, the findings are consistent with the position that English standardized tests may be a biased assessment measure when used with dual language learners, particularly for the assessment of expressive morphosyntactic skills.

Readers will be able to (1) describe the narrative abilities of typically developing dual language learners; (2) describe similarities between the narrative abilities of children with SLI who are monolingual and dual language learners; (3) identify ways to analyses narratives at a variety of levels.