Responses to query on speech delays
in multilingual environments

To summarize the research: There are two schools of thought. The older one argues that the multilingual environment may cause speech delay in young children. The newer one refutes these claims and argues that raising children in multilingual environment does not cause any speech delays, but in fact, benefits the child's development. So, if there are young children with apparent speech delay, it is due to some other factors (but not to multilingual environment).

• Abu-Rabia, S. & L.S. Siegel (2002) Reading, Syntactic, Orthographic, and Working Memory Skills of Bilingual Arabic-English Speaking Canadian Children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 31 (6): 661-678.

• Ball, M. J. (2005) Clinical Sociolinguistics. Blackwell Publishing

• 'Challenging Case: Cultural and Linguistic Determinants in the Diagnosis and Management of Development Delay in a Four Year Old'. In Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Vol.23, No.5, October 2002. pp. 371-376 (http://www.mcw.edu/display/displayFile.asp?docid=10231&filena me=/User/akrimmer/CAUC/flores/JDBP_10-02.pdf)

• Chandler Yeo, Helen, Susan Rickard Liow & Anthea Frase Gupta. (1994). Specific language disorders in Singaporean children: four case studies. Singapore Journal of Education 114:2, pp. 1-10.

• Chavda, Usha et al. (2000). Important issues in the Care and Evaluation of Bilingual /Multilingual Children. International Pediatrics, Vol.18, No.1, pp 8-13. (http://int-pediatrics.org/PDF/Volume_18/18_1/8_13ip 03_WEB.pdf)

• Child Language Teaching and Therapy (19:3), 1 October 2003:

  • Mahon M., Crutchley A., Quinn T. New directions in the assessment of bilingual children pp. 237-243(7)

  • Martin D., Krishnamurthy R., Bhardwaj M., Charles R. Language change in young Panjabi/English children: implications for bilingual language assessment 245-265(21)

  • Pert S., Letts C. Developing an expressive language assessment for children in Rochdale with a Pakistani heritage background, pp. 267-289(23)

  • Seeff-Gabriel B. Phonological processing: a platform for assisting second-language learners with English spelling, pp. 291-310(20)

  • Howell P., Davis S., Au-Yeung J. Syntactic development in fluent children, children who stutter, and children who have English as an additional language, pp. 311-337(27)

  • Salameh E-K., Nettelbladt U., Norlin K. Assessing phonologies in bilingual Swedish-Arabic children with and without language impairment, pp. 338-364 (27)

• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena. (2006). Three is a Crowd? Multilingual Matters.

• Cummins, J. (2000) Language Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

• Duncan, D. (1989) Working with Bilingual Language Disability. Chapman and Hall.

• Feldman (2005). Evaluation and Management of Language and Speech Disorders in Preschool Children. Pediatrics in Review. 26: 131-142.

• Gupta, Anthea Fraser and Helen Chandler. (1993). Pediatric speech and language therapy referral in Singapore: implications for multilingual language disability. European Journal of Disorders of Communication 28, pp. 311-317.

• Gupta, Anthea Fraser. (1994). Language disorder--is monolingualism necessary? The Bilingual Family Newsletter 11:4.

• Genesee, F. (2003) Bilingualism and language impairment. In R.D. Kent (Ed.) MIT Encyclopedia of Communication Disorders. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 275-278.

• Genesee, F., Paradis, J., & Crago, M. (2004). Dual Language Development and Disorders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

• Goldstein, B. (Ed.). (2004). Bilingual Language Development and Disorders in Spanish-English Speakers. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes

• Harris, Margaret. 1992 (1993, 1996). Language experience and early language development; from input to uptake. Psychology Press, Sussex.

• Høkansson, G., E-K. Salameh & U. Nettelbladt (2003) Measuring Language Development in Bilingual Children: Swedish-Arabic Children with and without Language Impairment. Linguistics 41(2): 255-288

• Holm A., Dodd B. (1999) An intervention case study of a bilingual child with phonological disorder. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 1 June 1999, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 139-158(20) (concerns English-Punjabi)

• Hua, Zhu and Barbara Dodd, eds. Phonological development and disorders in children : a multilingual perspective. Multilingual Matters, 2006.

• Jordaan, H., Shaw-Ridley, G., Serfontein, J., & Orelowitz, K. (2001). Cognitive and liguistic profiles of specific language impairment and semantic-pragmatic disorder in bilinguals. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 53, 153-165.

• Kay-Raining Bird, E., Cleave, P., Trudeau, N., Thordardottir, E., Sutton, A., & Thorpe, A. (2005). The language abilities of bilingual children with Down Syndrome.American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 14, 187-199.

• Klee, T et al. (2004) Utterance Length and Lexical Diversity in Cantonese-Speaking Children With and Without Specific Language Impairment. JOURNAL OF SPEECH LANGUAGE AND HEARING RESEARCH. 47; 6, pp.1396-1410.

• Kohnert, K. et al (2005) Intervention With Linguistically Diverse Preschool Children: A Focus on Developing Home Language(s).Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 36:3 pp 251-263.

• Laing, S. Kahmi, A.(2003) Alternative Assessment of Language and Literacy in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse population. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools. Vol 34, pp. 44-55.

• Martin, D., Colesby,C. and Jhamat, K. (1997) Phonological awareness in Panjabi/English children with phonological difficulties. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 13,1,59-72

• Meisel, J. M. (1989). Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. In K. Hyltenstam and L. K. Obler (Eds.), Bilingualism Across the Lifespan: Aspects of Acquisition, Maturity, and Loss. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

• Meisel, J. (2004). The bilingual child. In T.J. Bhatia and Richie (Eds.), The Handbook of Bilingualism (pp. 91-113). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

• Ng and Wigglesworth (forthcoming). Bilingualism: An advanced resource book. Routledge.

• Paradis, J. (to appear). Bilingual Children with Special Language Impairment: Theoretical and Aplied Issues.Applied Psycholinguistics (http://www.ualberta.ca/~jparadis/Paradis_BilingSLI_AP_pdf.pdf)

• Paradis, J. (2005) Grammatical Morphology in Children Learning English as a Second Language: Implications of Similarities With Specific Language Impairment . Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 36:3 pp. 172-?

• Paradis, J. & M. Crago (2000) Tense and temporality: a comparison between children learning a second language and children with SLI. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research 43: 834847.

• Paradis, J., Crago, M., Genesee, F., & Rice, M. (2003). French-English bilingual children with SLI: How do they compare with their monolingual peers? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46, 113-127.

• Paradis, J. & Crago M (in press) Comparing L2 and SLI grammars in child French: Focus on DP. In J. Paradis & P. Prévost (eds) The Acquisition of French in Different Contexts: Focus on Functional Categories. Amsterdam: Benjamins

• Ray, J. (2002) Treating Phonological Disorders in a Multilingual Child: A Case Study. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Vol 11, pp.305-315 (concerns English, Hindi, Gujurati)

• Restrepo, M. A., & Kruth, K. (2000). Grammatical characteristics of a Spanish-English bilingual child with SLI. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 21, 66-76.

• Salameh et al (2004) Developmental perspectives on bilingual Swedish-Arabic children with and without language impairment: a longitudinal study. IJLCD 39:1

• Shriberg et al. (1999) Prevalence of Speech Delay in 6-Year-Old Children and Comorbidity With Language. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research. 42: 1461-1481

• So L.K.H., Leung C-S.S. (2004). A phonological screening tool for Cantonese-speaking children. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 1 February 2004, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 75-86(12)

• Stow, C. and Dodd, B. (2003). Providing an equitable service to bilingual children in the UK: a review. IJLCD 38:4

• Tse, S.K. et al (2005). Is the expressive vocabulary of young Cantonese speakers noun or verb dominated? Early Child Development and Care, 175:3, pp. 215-227.

This bibliography originally appeared in Linguist-List at http://linguistlist.org/issues/18/18-1028.html