ERIC Number: EJ1463710
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Mar
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1368-2822
EISSN: EISSN-1460-6984
Available Date: 2025-02-19
Language Assessment of Polish-English Bilingual Children by Speech and Language Therapists Who Do Not Speak Polish: A Feasibility Study of a Novel Scoring Schema for Sentence-Repetition-Tasks
International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, v60 n2 e70005 2025
Background: The challenge of assessing all languages of multilingual children by clinicians who do not speak the children's heritage languages is a global problem amplified by the increase in recent migration as well as a lack of available assessment tools. Aim: To evaluate the feasibility of using a novel scoring schema to assist English-speaking speech and language therapists (SLTs) practising in Ireland in scoring Polish Sentence-Repetition (SRep) Tasks in collaboration with Polish language teachers, and to profile and compare children's language performance across their languages using this scoring schema. Methods and Procedures: LITMUS SRep in English and Polish was completed by 15 typically-developing children (aged 5-8 years) and 12 children with suspected Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) (aged 5-8 years). Scoring of the Polish SRep was completed collaboratively by a monolingual English-speaking SLT and a Polish language teacher and was compared to the scoring completed by Polish linguists. Outcomes and Results: Findings indicated that the two scoring methods gave comparable outcomes. Individual participants' performance varied across the Polish and English SRep with some performing better in Polish, some in English and some with a relatively balanced performance across languages. Conclusions and Implications: Using pre-recorded sentences in conjunction with the novel scoring schema presented in this study has the potential to support SLTs to increase accuracy in diagnosing DLD and reduce both over- and underdiagnosis of multilingual children. Scoring guidelines need to incorporate crosslinguistic influence across languages of bilingual children while clearly outlining language specific clinical markers for DLD.
Descriptors: Language Tests, Polish, English, Bilingualism, Children, Allied Health Personnel, Speech Language Pathology, Speech Therapy, Scoring, Sentences, Repetition, Foreign Countries, Evaluation Methods
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Ireland
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland; 2Institute of Psychology, The Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw, Poland; 3Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland