The article, “Three Treatments for Bilingual Children With Primary Language Impairment: Examining Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Domain Effects”, presents a study that was funded by a grant received from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). A common developmental disorder such as the one examined in this study, Primary or Specific Language Impairment (PLI), is defined by poor language abilities not attributable to neurological, sensory, cognitive, or motor impairments or to environmental factors (Leonard, 1998; Schwartz, 2009). Children with PLI, show weakness in oral language that contribute to challenges in written language, significantly putting bilingual children with PLI at academic and social risk. The most obvious symptoms can shift with severity of the impairment, characteristics of the language(s) needed to be learned, and the child’s developmental stage. Bilingual children show significant impairment in both of their languages, as compared to their peers with similar language-learning experiences. Due to the significant lack of evidence needed to implement treatment protocols for bilingual children with PLI, researchers compared three different treatment programs that were administered by speech language pathologists (SLPs), on language and cognitive outcomes in Spanish/English bilingual children with PLI. Programs used a combination of computer-based and interactive training strategies.
Participants were 59 Spanish/English bilingual children with PLI, 50 of which were boys and 9 girls ranging in ages from 5;6 - 11;2. They all attended one of the eight schools in Minneapolis Public School district and had been receiving special educations services. Qualification for these SPED la...
... middle of paper ...
...m the pre- to post- testing across all experimental groups were relatively modest. Results for children in active treatment groups weren’t statistically different than the ones in the control group. The limited literature for PLI school age children suggested that the change was slow by standard scores on norm reference tests. It was noted that they had focused their analyses on the general measures of language and cognitive skills. The study was also affected by the sample size, especially the control group. It would have been productive if they considered each child’s characteristics at the starting point, and examinations of the effects of age, initial severity and language backgrounds. The author also noted, more homogeneous samples of bilingual children with PLI in future exploration and the overall intensity of the experimental treatment was high for children.
Valdes, G., & Figueroa, R. A. (1994). Bilingualism and testing: a special case of bias. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.
During this examination, the administration did not take into account that Serge was not proficient enough in English to fully comprehend the test. Serge was tested in English for the majority of the questions and was unable to successfully answer them due to his language barrier. When Serge was placed into the third-grade class, he had just gone through a traumatic experience wand was undergoing both a cultural and language shock. These events should have played a more prominent role in his assessment. Moreover, Serge was not correctly identified as learning disabled, because of the language barrier present in these tests. Since he was tested in mainly English, it was not that he was disabled, it was because he lacked the understanding of the English language. As specified by Salend and Salinas (2003), in their six recommendations for multidisciplinary teams, students should be assessed in both their native and secondary languages. These results should then be compared in order to determine results (Salend & Salinas, 2003,
Literacy is vital for reading and writing of all children, both hearing and deaf. Research has shown that having a strong L1 foundation, it can be applied in learning how to read and write in English. Advocates of bilingual bicultural education agree that the reading and writing skills that are acquired based on the strong foundation of their L1 develops the foundation of L2 (Evans, 2004; Puente et al, 2006). Researches conducted by Padden & Ramsey (2000) show that ASL fingerspelling skills are related to English literacy and vocabulary knowledge (Hile, 2009). One study done by Padden & Ramsey (2000), showed the fingerspelling tasks that were given to thirty-one deaf students in two groups (3rd-4th graders
When visiting just about any school across America, students who attend come from all over the globe. This raises the question across America about bilingual education. This can create many challenges in and out of the classroom. The classroom should be a safe place for all students regardless of what native language they speak. In the essay Lost in translation written by Eva Hoffman, describes a foreign student who tries hard to fit in. Instead, Eva begins to feel angry, hurt and confused because people laugh at her. In Guiding Principles for Dual Language Education by Elizabeth R. Howard, Julie Sugarman, Donna Christian Center for Applied Linguistics Kathryn J. Lindholm-Leary San José State University David Rogers Dual Language Education of New Mexico. Guiding principles gives great ideas to educators to stop kids from making other students feel the way that Eva felt. After reading several articles about bilingual education, it is evident that all children in school should learn English but never lose their native language. When all the students speak one language, students will be less likely to make fun of each other. A good educator should learn enough foreign languages to aid them in effective communication in their classroom although; if an educator does not speak a foreign language, they should recruit within the classroom students to be peer mentors. However, a teacher should be willing to listen and encourage the students. Above all a good educator should be a good role model to their students by respecting their heritage and their language.
According with Jean Piaget whose theory on child development has been a great influence in education; language development is the most important phase during the Preoperational stage of cognitive development. During this stage children develop and build up their knowledge and vocabulary by asking questions and expressing ideas through words, images and drawings. This stage is considerate to happen from two years of to seven years of age (Kendra Cherry). Language development has direct implications in the intellectual development of a child, and it is one of the main tools to develop our thinking process. We use words to store and access memories or other information. For Latinos children and especially recent arrivals whose language is Spanish entering to school where their primary language (Mother tongue) has no validation neither use may be traumatic and even hinder their future opportunities to succeed in a school system that is complete foreign in concept and in language. In order to integrate and create opportunities for the Latino students to succeed the in the educational system we must create programs that address the specific needs of the Latino community such as bilingual education where students learn to speak, read and write in their mother tongue language first.
Learning multiple languages opens doors for people not only in their local communities, but on a global scale. It has also been proven to advance cognition by improving conflict management, executive controls, and sound recognition. Students who are bilingual have two active languages in their minds and create flexible minds by constantly processing and translating in both languages. These mental activities are displayed to be beneficial through impressive academics. For these reasons, bilingual education in the United States is critical. Language is the single most important asset in human civilization. Prior to it, cave men communicated through grunts and images. Not only does language tie people together, but it also has an impact on one’s mentality and personal
Language is integral to learning as it is linked to our thoughts. It helps us to organise our thoughts in an organised way. If a child has difficulties in communicating with others due to a speech and language delay or disorder, they will not be working to their full potential, as they will be less able to organise their thought processes and express themselves. This becomes even more of a problem as children become older and the curriculum becomes more demanding, the use of rational and abstract thinking will become more important, hence the importance of early detection and intervention. The early years are a time of rapid learning and development, therefore the earlier the diagnosis of delayed language acquisition, the easier it will be for professionals and others to target the childâ€TMs needs so that they are able to give appropriate support, thus benefiting the
From my experience, bilingual education was a disadvantage during my childhood. At the age of twelve, I was introduced into a bilingual classroom for the first time. The crowded classroom was a combination of seventh and eighth grade Spanish-speaking students, who ranged from the ages of twelve to fifteen. The idea of bilingual education was to help students who weren’t fluent in the English language. The main focus of bilingual education was to teach English and, at the same time, teach a very basic knowledge of the core curriculum subjects: Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences. Unfortunately, bilingual education had academic, psychological, and social disadvantages for me.
This research topic concerning bilingual children’s advantages arises from the dominance of cognitive development, executive function, but mainly their attention that makes bilingualism an advantage overall. Bilingualism accompanied specifically by the role of attention works together perfectly as an enhanced benefit for those who fluently speak two languages. In order for this undiscovered gain to be established, research comparing bilinguals with monolinguals had to commence. Peal and Lambert initially stated that bilingual children would obtain lower scores on verbal measures, but surprisingly bilingual children outscored their monolingual peers on all tests! These unanticipated results brought forth the argument that bilingual children
Volterra, V., & Taeschner, T. (1978). The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children. Journal of child language, 5(2), 311-326.
The definition of bilingualism is an individual’s ability to understand and speak two languages. Professionals understand how important a child’s cultural connection is to their family. The hypothesis shown was that bilingual parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder may have a different approach in contrast to bilingual parents with typically developing children. The purpose was to explore the different perspectives of parents about their children's learning environment. Researchers conducted a qualitative study if being bilingual has a negative effect on neurotypical children, children with language development delays, and language disorders. For their approach, they interviewed the first group: the parents of children with ASD. The second group: The parents of children that are TD. This interview included: seventeen parents of bilingual ASD children and eighteen bilingual parents with TD children with the ages of children between three and ten years-old.
The positives and negatives of giving the child a bimodal bilingual education will also be discussed. The difference between sign languages
BILINGUALISM have both Positive and Negative effects on the Child’s linguistic, Cognitive and Educational Development.
The development of the brain of a bilingual individual is better than a monolingual individual. Few years ago, researchers from the University of Washington (as cited in Klass, 2011, para 4.) found that the brains of bilingual infants (from families where two languages were spoken) are able to discriminate the different of the phonetic sound of the languages they usually heard when they grew up than monolingual infants in where their brains were adapted to only identify their mother tongue only. Dr. Patricia Kuhl, one of the members of this research team thus believe that bilingual education can shape infants’ brains and keep them ready for future challenges. Concurrently, a renowned psychologist, Dr. Ellen...
There are two types of bilingualism; simultaneous and sequential. There are children who expose two languages in the family environment, including speech-sign language; this group is part of simultaneous bilingualism and also in some countries bilingualism is required and children learn second language later in their life; and this group is part of sequential bilingualism. Besides, the population of sequential bilinguals is very high in Turkey. Whether it is successful or not, in Turkey children expose to English from the beginning of their education and they are required to be bilingual, even trilingual in their later life. Therefore, it is essential to investigate its effects on children. This is one of our reasons to choose this topic. Moreover,