Article published In:
Language Impairment in Bilingual Children: State of the art 2017Edited by Theodoros Marinis, Sharon Armon-Lotem and George Pontikas
[Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 7:3/4] 2017
► pp. 460–475
Edited by Theodoros Marinis, Sharon Armon-Lotem and George Pontikas
[Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 7:3/4] 2017
► pp. 460–475
Verbal fluency in bilingual children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
We examine the impact of bilingualism on verbal fluency in four groups of school-age (5 to 10 years-old) children: 13 Typically-developing (TYP) monolingual children, 13 TYP bilingual children, 13 monolingual children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and 13 bilingual children with ASD. Participants were matched on chronological age and nonverbal IQ. Verbal fluency was examined via the word association subtest of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF-4; Semel et al., 2003). The bilingual ASD group performed unexpectedly well on the verbal fluency task, not differing from the typically-developing groups, but outperforming the monolingual ASD group with respect to number of correct words produced. These findings are in line with previous research on bilingual children with ASD (e.g., Hambly & Fombonne, 2012) and taken together suggest that bilingualism does not have a negative impact on the lexical-semantic skills of children with ASD.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Research hypothesis
- 3.Methods
- 3.1Participants
- 3.2Procedure
- 4.Results
- 5.Discussion
- Acknowledgements
-
References
References (43)
Abwender, D. A., Swan, J.G., Bowerman, J. T., & Connolly, S. W.
(2001) Qualitative analysis of verbal fluency output: Review and comparison of several scoring methods. Assessment, 81, 323–336. 
American Psychiatric Association
(2013) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington: American Psychiatric Association.
Barac, R., & Bialystok, E.
(2012) Bilingual effects on cognitive and linguistic development: Role of language, cultural background, and education. Child Development, 831, 413–422.
Begeer, S., Wierda, M., Scheeren, A. M., Teunisse, J. P., Koot, H. M., & Geurts, H. M.
(2014) Verbal fluency in children with autism spectrum disorders: Clustering and switching strategies. Autism, 181, 1014–1018.
Bialystok, E., & Barac, R.
(2012) Emerging bilingualism: Dissociating advantages for metalinguistic awareness and executive control. Cognition, 1221, 67–73.
Bialystok, E., & Martin, M. M.
(2004) Attention and inhibition in bilingual children: Evidence from the dimensional change card sort task. Developmental Science, 71, 325–339.
Carmo, J. C., Duarte, E., Pinho, S., Marques, F., & Filipe, C. N.
(2015) Verbal fluency as a function of time in autism spectrum disorder: An impairment of initiation processes? Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 371, 710–721.
Chandler, S., Charman, T., Baird, G., Simonoff, E., Loucas, T., Meldrum, D., … & Pickles, A.
(2007) Validation of the social communication questionnaire in a population cohort of children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 461, 1324–1332.
Drysdale, H., van der Meer, L., & Kagohara, D.
(2015) Children with autism spectrum disorder from bilingual families: a systematic review. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 21, 26–38.
Eigsti, I. M.
(2011) Executive functions in ASD. In D. A. Fein (Ed.), The neuropsychology of autism (pp. 185–203). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Friesen, D. C., Luo, L., Luk, G., & Bialystok, E.
(2015) Proficiency and control in verbal fluency performance across the lifespan for monolinguals and bilinguals. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 301, 238–250.
Geurts, H., Verté, S., Oosterlaan, J., Roeyers, H., & Sergeant, J. A.
(2004) How specific are executive functioning deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 451, 836–854.
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., & Werner, G. A.
(2002) Semantic and letter fluency in Spanish-English bilinguals. Neuropsychology, 161, 562–576.
Hambly, C., & Fombonne, E.
(2012) The impact of bilingual environments on language development in children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 421, 1342–1352.
Hill, E. L.
(2004) Evaluating the theory of executive dysfunction in autism. Developmental Review, 241, 189–233.
Hill, E. L. & Bird, C. M.
(2006) Executive processes in Asperger syndrome: Patterns of performance in a multiple case series. Neuropsychologia, 441, 2822–2835.
Klassert, A., Gagarina, N., & Kauschke, C.
(2014) Object and action naming in Russian-and German-speaking monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 171, 1–16.
Koren, R., Kofman, O., & Berger, A.
(2005) Analysis of word clustering in verbal fluency of school-aged children. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 201, 1087–1104.
Kormi-Nouri, R., Moradi, A. R., Moradi, S., Akbari-Zardkhaneh, S., & Zahedian, H.
(2012) The effect on letter and category fluency tasks in primary school children: Advantage or disadvantage? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 151, 351–364.
Kremer-Sadlik, T.
(2005) To be or not to be bilingual: Autistic children from multilingual families. In Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism (pp. 1225–1234). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Luo, L., Luk, G., & Bialystok, E.
(2010) Effect of language proficiency and executive control on verbal fluency performance in bilinguals. Cognition, 1141, 29–41.
Ohashi, J. K., Mirenda, P., Marinova-Todd, S., Hambly, C., Fombonne, E., Szatmari, P., … & Thompson, A.
(2012) Comparing early language development in monolingual-and bilingual-exposed young children with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 61, 890–897.
Ozonoff, S., Cook, I., Coon, H., Dawson, G., Joseph, R. M., Klin, A., … & Wrathall, D.
(2004) Performance on Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery subtests sensitive to frontal lobe function in people with autistic disorder: evidence from the Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism network. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 341, 139–150.
Petersen, J. M., Marinova-Todd, S. H., & Mirenda, P.
(2012) Brief report: An exploratory study of lexical skills in bilingual children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 421, 1499–1503.
Reetzke, R., Zou, X., Sheng, L., & Katsos, N.
(2015) Communicative development in bilingually exposed Chinese children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 581, 813–825.
Regard, M., Strauss, E., & Knapp, P.
(1982) Children’s production on verbal and non-verbal fluency tasks. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 551, 839–844.
Roberts, P. M., & Le Dorze, G.
(1997) Semantic organization, strategy use, and productivity in bilingual semantic verbal fluency. Brain and Language, 591, 412–449.
Robinson, S., Goddard, L., Dritschel, B., Wisley, M., & Howlin, P.
(2009) Executive functions in children with autism spectrum disorders. Brain and Cognition, 711, 362–368.
Roid, G., & Miller, L.
(1997) Leiter International Performance Scale — Revised. Wood Dale: Stoelting.
Rutter, M., Bailey, A., Berument, S. K., Lord, C., & Pickles, A.
(2003) Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ). Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.
Sandoval, T. C., Gollan, T. H., Ferreira, V. S., & Salmon, D. P.
(2010) What causes the bilingual disadvantage in verbal fluency? The dual-task analogy. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 131, 231–252.
Sauzéon, H., Lestage, P., Raboutet, C., N’Kaoua, B., & Claverie, B.
(2004) Verbal fluency output in children aged 7–16 as a function of the production criterion: Qualitative analysis of clustering, switching processes, and semantic network exploitation. Brain and Language, 891, 192–202.
Semel, E., Wiig, E. H., & Secord, W. A.
(2003) Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (4th ed.). San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
Spek, A., Schatorjé, T., Scholte, E., & Berckelaer-Onnes, I.
(2009) Verbal fluency in adults with high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome, Neuropsychologia, 471, 652–656.
Troster, A. I., Salmon, D. P. McCullough, D., & Butters, N.
(1989) A comparison of the category fluency deficits associated with Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease. Brain and Language, 371, 500–513.
Troyer, A.K.
(2000) Normative data for clustering and switching on verbal fluency tasks. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 221, 370–378.
Troyer, A. K., Moscovitch, M., & Winocur, G.
(1997) Clustering and switching as two components of verbal fluency: Evidence from younger and older healthy adults. Neuropsychology, 111, 138–146.
Turner, M.A.
(1999) Generating novel ideas: Fluency performance in high-functioning and learning disabled individuals with autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 401, 189–201.
Welsh, M. C., Pennington, B. F., Groisser, D. B.
(1991) A normative-developmental study of executive function: A window on prefrontal function in children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 71, 131–149.
Wiig, E., Secord, W., Semel, E., Boulianne, L., & Labelle, M.
(2009) Évaluation clinique des notions langagières fondamentales: Version pour francophones du Canada (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals: French Canadian Version). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Pearson Canada Assessment.
Yan, S., & Nicoladis, E.
(2009) Finding le mot juste: Differences between bilingual and monolingual children’s lexical access in comprehension and production. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 121, 323–335.
Yu, B.
(2013) Issues in bilingualism and heritage language maintenance: Perspective of minority-language mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 221, 10–24.
Zelazo, P. D.
(2006) The Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS): A method of assessing executive function in children. Nature Protocols, 11, 297–301.
Cited by (28)
Cited by 28 other publications
Cummings, Kaitlin K., Rachel K. Greene, Paul Cernasov, Dang Dang Delia Kan, Julia Parish-Morris, Gabriel Dichter & Jessica L. Kinard
2024. Bilingualism Predicts Affective Theory of Mind in Autistic Adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 67:6 ► pp. 1785 ff. 
Garcia-Alcaraz, Estela & Juana M. Liceras
2024. The linguistic and metalinguistic abilities of monolingual and bilingual speakers with Prader–Willi syndrome. Lingua 304 ► pp. 103724 ff.
Garcia-Alcaraz, Estela & Juana M. Liceras
2024. Bilingüismo y discapacidad intelectual: habilidades lingüísticas y metalingüísticas, en castellano y en catalán, de hablantes con el síndrome Prader-Willi. Revista de Investigación en Logopedia 14:2 ► pp. e91035 ff.
Garrido, D., B. López & G. Carballo
2024. Bilingüismo y lenguaje en niños con trastorno del espectro autista: una revisión sistemática. Neurología 39:1 ► pp. 84 ff.
Garrido, D., B. López & G. Carballo
2024. Bilingualism and language in children with autistic spectrum disorder: a systematic review. Neurología (English Edition) 39:1 ► pp. 84 ff.
Ge, Haoyan, Albert Kwing Lok Lee, Hoi Kwan Yuen, Fang Liu & Virginia Yip
2024. Bilingual exposure might enhance L1 development in Cantonese–English bilingual autistic children: Evidence from the production of focus. Autism 28:7 ► pp. 1795 ff.
Grissom, Alaina, Erinn Finke & Emily Zane
2024. Verbal fluency and autism: Reframing current data through the lens of monotropism. Autism Research 17:2 ► pp. 324 ff.
Brandeker, Myrto & Elin Thordardottir
2023. Verbal fluency in bilingual school-age children: Looking at switching, clustering, and the effect of language experience. International Journal of Bilingualism 27:3 ► pp. 374 ff.
COHEN, S. R., A. WISHARD GUERRA, J. MIGUEL, K. BOTTEMA-BEUTEL & G. OLIVEIRA
2023. Hablando at home: Examining the interactional resources of a bilingual autistic child. Journal of Child Language ► pp. 1 ff.
Gilhuber, Christina Sophia, Tracy Jane Raulston & Kasie Galley
2023. Language and communication skills in multilingual children on the autism spectrum: A systematic review. Autism 27:6 ► pp. 1516 ff.
Hantman, Rachel M., Boin Choi, Katie Hartwick, Zoe Nadler & Gigi Luk
2023. A systematic review of bilingual experiences, labels, and descriptions in autism spectrum disorder research. Frontiers in Psychology 14
Hastedt, Ingrid, Abbey Eisenhower, R. Christopher Sheldrick & Alice S. Carter
2023. Bilingual and Monolingual Autistic Toddlers: Language and Social Communication Skills. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 53:6 ► pp. 2185 ff.
MEIR, Natalia & Rama NOVOGRODSKY
2023. Referential expressions in monolingual and bilingual children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A study of informativeness and definiteness. Journal of Child Language 50:2 ► pp. 215 ff.
Tang, Xinzhou, Zihui Hua, Jiayin Xing, Li Yi, Zhaozheng Ji, Liyang Zhao, Xing Su, Tingni Yin, Ran Wei, Xue Li & Jing Liu
2023. Verbal fluency as a predictor of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis and co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms. Reading and Writing 36:6 ► pp. 1461 ff.
Zarokanellou, Vasiliki, K. Papanikolaou, D. Tafiadis & G. Kolaitis
2023. Qualitative analysis of verbal fluency in school-age children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Associations with age and IQ. Applied Neuropsychology: Child 12:3 ► pp. 235 ff.
de Valenzuela, J. S., Rosalía Pacheco & Sunaina Shenoy
2022. Current Practices and Challenges in Language Proficiency Assessment for English Learners with Complex Support Needs. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities 47:1 ► pp. 6 ff.
Prévost, Philippe & Laurice Tuller
2022. Bilingual language development in autism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 12:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Klein, Wendy
2021. Managing trouble spots in conversation. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 31:2 ► pp. 225 ff.
Gonzalez-Barrero, Ana Maria & Aparna Nadig
2020. Bilingualism and Language Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. In Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, ► pp. 1 ff.
Gonzalez-Barrero, Ana Maria & Aparna Nadig
2021. Bilingualism and Language Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. In Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, ► pp. 699 ff.
Novogrodsky, Rama & Natalia Meir
2020. Multilingual Children with Special Needs in Early Education. In Handbook of Early Language Education [Springer International Handbooks of Education, ], ► pp. 1 ff.
Novogrodsky, Rama & Natalia Meir
2022. Multilingual Children with Special Needs in Early Education. In Handbook of Early Language Education [Springer International Handbooks of Education, ], ► pp. 669 ff.
Gonzalez‐Barrero, Ana Maria & Aparna S. Nadig
2019. Can Bilingualism Mitigate Set‐Shifting Difficulties in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders?. Child Development 90:4 ► pp. 1043 ff.
Lim, Nataly
2019. Heritage Language use for Intervention in Autism. In Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, ► pp. 1 ff.
Lim, Nataly
2021. Heritage Language Use for Intervention in Autism. In Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, ► pp. 2328 ff.
Nadig, Aparna & Ana Maria Gonzalez-Barrero
2019. Chapter 20. Proficient bilingualism may alleviate some executive function difficulties in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. In Bilingualism, Executive Function, and Beyond [Studies in Bilingualism, 57], ► pp. 337 ff.
Angulo-Jiménez, Henry
2018. Bilingualism and Autism: Addressing Parents' Frequently Asked Questions. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups 3:1 ► pp. 98 ff.
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.