Diagnosing language impairment in bilinguals : professional experience and perception

Diagnosing specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual children is a complex
task, with some controversy regarding criteria. Diagnosis of SLI in bilinguals is made
more complex by the lack of standardized assessments and poor understanding of
clinical markers in languages other than English. There is an added complexity when one
of the languages being acquired is an endangered one, where the domains of use and
input are restricted, and where input is affected by convergence with the majority
language. This article explores the challenge facing speech and language therapists and
psychologists in diagnosing SLI in bilingual children acquiring Irish and English. Six
speech and language therapists and four psychologists took part in semi-structured
interviews exploring the impact of the bilingual environment, the nature of bilingual
language impairment, current practices and the needs of these children. Thematic
analysis was carried out and here three of the main themes emerging in the areas of
assessment, the bilingual environment and characteristics of language impairment in this
population are discussed. For assessment, an overriding theme was the requirement of
standardized testing to secure additional educational and therapy resources for these
children. However, because there are no standardized tests available in Irish, both
professions end up translating existing English-based language and psychological
assessments, using the norms provided to achieve standard scores. Both professions
expressed strong dissatisfaction with this practice but saw little choice, given the
Department of Education’s approach to allocation of supports. Language impairment in
Irish was characterized by lexical difficulties, particularly with verbs and prepositions,
tense errors, and significant borrowing and code-switching with English. Other themes
that emerged were the growing influence of English as the children became older, which
affected both attitudes to the minority Irish language as well as the content and structure
of the language itself. The implications for service provision for bilingual populations in
general are outlined.