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Language Impairment in Multilingual Settings: LITMUS in action across Europe
Edited by Sharon Armon-Lotem and Kleanthes K. Grohmann
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 29] 2021
► pp. 169–196

Identification of bilingual children with Specific Language Impairment in France

| Université François-Rabelais de Tours
| Université François-Rabelais de Tours
| Université François-Rabelais de Tours
| Université François-Rabelais de Tours
| Université François-Rabelais de Tours
| Université François-Rabelais de Tours
| Université François-Rabelais de Tours
| CHRU de Tours

We report on the usefulness of three LITMUS tools in distinguishing bilingual children with SLI (Bi-SLI) from bilingual children with typical development (Bi-TD), in France: LITMUS-QU-NWR-FR (non-word repetition), LITMUS-SR-FR (sentence repetition), and LITMUS-PABIQ (parental questionnaire). 82 bilingual children, aged 5–8, who had all been exposed to both French and either Arabic, Portuguese or Turkish, recruited both in ordinary schools and in SLP practices, were divided into Bi-TD (n = 61) and Bi-SLI (n = 21) groups based on parental questionnaire (LITMUS-PABIQ) information and standardized language scores in each language. Monolingual controls included 17 children with SLI and 37 TD children. NWR and SR significantly distinguished between the Bi-TD and the Bi-SLI children, and there was minimal impact of different factors related to bilingual development on children’s performance.

Keywords: bilingualism, Specific Language Impairment, acquisition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methods and participants
    • 2.1Participants: Recruitment and assignment into groups
    • 2.2The experimental protocol
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Do NWR and SR identify SLI in bilingual children?
    • 3.2Are age and French exposure/use linked to performance on NWR and SR?
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1The accuracy of LITMUS-SR-FR and LITMUS-QU-NWR-FR
    • 4.2The LITMUS tools and the impact of bilingualism factors
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.29.06alm
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