Identifiers of Language Impairment for Spanish-English Dual Language Learners

Area of Science:

• Speech and Language Pathology
• Developmental Psychology
• Bilingual Education

Background:

• Accurate identification of language impairment (LI) in Spanish-English dual language learners (SEDLLs) is crucial for appropriate intervention.
• Existing standardized assessments may not adequately differentiate LI from typical language development in SEDLLs.
• Evaluating the efficacy of specific assessment tools and methods for this population is essential.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the diagnostic accuracy of a standardized assessment for SEDLLs against translated/adapted assessments.
• To investigate whether incorporating informal measures enhances the classification accuracy of LI in SEDLLs.
• To determine the optimal combination of measures for identifying LI in young SEDLLs.

Main Methods:

• Administered standardized and informal language assessments to 30 Mexican American SEDLLs aged 4-5 years.
• Utilized discriminant analyses to evaluate the predictive value of individual and combined measures.
• Assessed sensitivity and specificity of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) subtests and language samples.

Main Results:

• The Morphosyntax and Semantics subtests of the BESA demonstrated the largest effect size among individual assessments (sensitivity 93.3%, specificity 86.7%).
• Combining BESA Morphosyntax and Semantics with mean length of utterance from the child's stronger language sample achieved over 90% confidence in identifying LI.
• Individual BESA subtests showed strong performance, but combined measures offered superior classification accuracy.

Conclusions:

• The BESA Morphosyntax and Semantics subtests are effective for identifying LI in SEDLLs.
• Integrating language sample analysis with these BESA subtests significantly increases the accuracy of LI identification.
• Further research validating these combined approaches is recommended for clinical practice.