Comparing the performance of bilingual children with developmental language disorder and typical development on...

Over the past decade, researchers have compared the performance of bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD) to those with typical development (TD), using the Sentence Repetition Task (SRT) to assess language abilities. Understanding the differences in their performance on the SRT is crucial for future assessment, intervention and research. This systematic review compares the performance of bilingual children with DLD against those with TD on their first (L1) and second (L2) language SRT results. It also investigates the impact of participant-related variables (e.g., scores on receptive vocabulary tasks) on the results.

A systematic search of eight electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, CINAHL, LLBA, ERIC, Embase and Dissertations and Theses) yielded 3204 records. Studies assessing bilingual children with TD and DLD on the SRT were included. Risk of bias was assessed using the modified Cochrane Risk Of Bias Assessment Tool for Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions.

After screening, 15 studies met the eligibility criteria. Eight studies reported on L1 performance and 13 studies reported on L2 performance. All eight L1 studies and 12 of the L2 studies showed that the performance of bilingual children with DLD was significantly weaker than that of TD children on the SRTs. Data suggested that working memory (represented by nonword repetition scores) and receptive vocabulary might influence participants' performance.

This review suggests that the performance of bilingual children with DLD is significantly weaker than those with TD on both L1 and L2 SRTs. There is preliminary evidence from a small number of studies examining participant-related variables that weaker working memory and receptive vocabulary may underlie poorer SRT performance in bilingual children with DLD.