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Part of
Bilingual Cognition and Language: The state of the science across its subfields
Edited by David Miller, Fatih Bayram, Jason Rothman and Ludovica Serratrice
[Studies in Bilingualism 54] 2018
► pp. 347–370

Chapter 16
Bilingualism and children with developmental language and communication disorders

| University of Alberta
| University of Alberta

Research on bilingualism in children with developmental language and communication disorders has focused primarily on children with specific language impairment (SLI), but some recent research has emerged on children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this chapter we review research on bilingual development in children with SLI and ASD organized around the following topics: (1) The capacity for successful bilingualism in children with developmental disorders; (2) The linguistic profiles of bilinguals with SLI across different languages and linguistic subdomains; (3) Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual development with SLI; (4) Development of a minority/heritage language in children with developmental disorders, and (6) Challenges and strategies in assessment and intervention practices with bilingual children.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Capacity for bilingualism in children with developmental disorders
    • 2.1Bilinguals with SLI compared to monolinguals with SLI: The Cumulative Effects Hypothesis
    • 2.2 Bilinguals with ASD compared to monolinguals with ASD: Does bilingualism exacerbate difficulties in language and communicative development?
  • 3. Linguistic profiles of bilinguals with SLI: Different languages and linguistic subdomains
    • 3.1Morphosyntax in bilingual SLI
    • 3.2The lexicon in bilingual SLI
    • 3.3Narrative skills in bilingual SLI
    • 3.4Linguistic subdomains in bilinguals with ASD
  • 4.Crosslinguistic influence in bilinguals with SLI
  • 5.Minority/heritage language acquisition in children with developmental disorders
    • 5.1Acquisition of the minority/heritage language in bilingual SLI
    • 5.2Advice to parents about language use at home
  • 6.Clinically-oriented research on assessment and intervention
    • 6.1Bilingual children with SLI: Assessment
    • 6.2Bilingual children with SLI: Intervention
  • 7.Conclusions and future directions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.54.16par
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