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Article published In:
Language Impairment in Bilingual Children: State of the art 2017
Edited by Theodoros Marinis, Sharon Armon-Lotem and George Pontikas
[Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 7:3/4] 2017
► pp. 277–300

Effects of language impairment and bilingualism across domains

Vocabulary, morphology and verbal memory

| Utrecht University
| Utrecht University

Purpose: This study examined the effects of language impairment (LI) and bilingualism across vocabulary, morphology and verbal memory in a sample of children learning Dutch. Methods: Children (MAGE = 71 months) were assigned to a monolingual group with typical development (TD) (n = 30), bilingual TD (n = 30), monolingual LI (n = 30) or bilingual LI group (n = 30). Vocabulary was measured with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, morphology with the Taaltoets Alle Kinderen, verbal short-term (VSTM) and working memory (VWM) with forward and backward digit span tasks. Results: Language knowledge (vocabulary, morphology) was affected by LI and bilingualism. Language processing (VSTM, VWM) was influenced by LI only. When language knowledge was controlled, the bilinguals outperformed the monolinguals on VSTM and VWM when TD and LI were collapsed. Bilingualism aggravated the effects of LI for vocabulary. Conclusions: Bilingualism may create a risk for the vocabulary knowledge of children with LI, but might be beneficial for their verbal memory.

Keywords: language impairment, bilingualism, knowledge and processing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Effects of language impairment
    • 1.2Effects of bilingualism
    • 1.3Research questions and predictions
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Tasks and procedures
      • Receptive vocabulary
      • Morphology
      • Verbal short-term and working memory
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Effects of LI and bilingualism across domains
      • Effect of LI
      • Effect of bilingualism
    • 3.2Four-group comparisons across domains
    • 3.3Comparing effects in mono- and bilingual contexts
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • References
Published online: 7 March 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.15018.blo
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