Code-switching in bilingual children with DLD (Gross & Castilla-Earls, 2023)

Purpose: This study examined the frequency, direction, and structural characteristics of code-switching (CS) during narratives by Spanish–English bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) to determine whether children with DLD exhibit unique features in their CS that may inform clinical decision-making.Method: Spanish–English bilingual children, aged 4;0–6;11 (years;months), with DLD (n = 33) and with typical language development (TLD; n = 33) participated in narrative retell and story generation tasks in Spanish and English. Instances of CS were classified as between utterance or within utterance; within-utterance CS was coded for type of grammatical structure. Children completed the morphosyntax subtests of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment to assist in identifying DLD and to index Spanish and English morphosyntactic proficiency.Results: In analyses examining the contributions of both DLD status and Spanish and English proficiency, the only significant effect of DLD was on the tendency to engage in between-utterance CS; children with DLD were more likely than TLD peers to produce whole utterances in English during the Spanish narrative task. Within-utterance CS was related to lower morphosyntax scores in the target language, but there was no effect of DLD. Both groups exhibited noun insertions as the most frequent type of within-utterance CS. However, children with DLD tended to exhibit more determiner and verb insertions than TLD peers and increased use of “congruent lexicalization,” that is, CS utterances that integrate content and function words from both languages.Conclusions: These findings reinforce that use of CS, particularly within-utterance CS, is a typical bilingual behavior even during narrative samples collected in a single-language context. However, language difficulties associated with DLD may emerge in how children code-switch, including use of between-utterance CS and unique patterns during within-utterance CS. Therefore, analyzing CS patterns may contribute to a more complete profile of children’s dual-language skills during assessment.Supplemental Material S1. Participant characteristics by site.Supplemental Material S2. Spearman-rho correlation tables.Supplemental Material S3. Examples of insertion types.Gross, M. C., & Castilla-Earls, A. (2023). Code-switching during narratives by bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(3), 996–1019. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00149

目的：本研究旨在探究西班牙语-英语双语儿童在叙述过程中代码转换（CS）的频率、方向和结构特征，以确定发育语言障碍（DLD）儿童是否在他们的代码转换中表现出独特的特征，这些特征可能对临床决策提供参考。方法：纳入了33名发育语言障碍儿童和33名典型语言发展儿童，年龄介于4岁0个月至6岁11个月之间，参与者在西班牙语和英语中进行叙述复述和故事创作任务。代码转换的实例被分类为跨话语或跨话语内的转换；跨话语内的代码转换按照语法结构类型进行编码。儿童完成了双语英语-西班牙语评估中的形态句法子测试，以协助识别DLD并评估西班牙语和英语的形态句法能力。结果：在分析DLD状态和西班牙语及英语能力对转换的影响时，DLD的唯一显著影响是对跨话语代码转换的倾向性；与典型语言发展同伴相比，DLD儿童在西班牙语叙述任务中更有可能使用整句英语。跨话语内的代码转换与目标语言的较低形态句法分数相关，但DLD没有产生影响。两组儿童都表现出名词插入是最常见的跨话语内代码转换类型。然而，DLD儿童倾向于比典型语言发展同伴表现出更多的限定词和动词插入，并增加了“一致词汇化”的使用，即整合两种语言的内容词和功能词的代码转换语句。结论：这些发现强化了代码转换，尤其是跨话语内的代码转换，即使在单语环境收集的叙述样本中，也是典型的双语行为。然而，与DLD相关的语言困难可能在儿童的代码转换中显现，包括跨话语代码转换和跨话语内代码转换的独特模式。因此，分析代码转换模式可能有助于在评估过程中更全面地了解儿童的双语技能。补充材料S1：不同地点的参与者特征。补充材料S2：Spearman-rho相关系数表。补充材料S3：插入类型示例。Gross, M. C.，& Castilla-Earls, A. (2023). 双语儿童在有和没有发育语言障碍时叙述中的代码转换。语言、言语和听力学校服务，54(3)，996–1019。https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00149