Identification of specific language impairment in bilingual children: I. Assessment in English.

PURPOSE

This study was designed to derive cut scores for English testing for use in identifying specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual children who were learning English as a second language.

METHOD

In a 1-gate design, 167 children received comprehensive language assessments in English and Spanish during their first-grade year. The reference standard was identification by a team of expert bilingual speech-language pathologists. Receiver operating curve (ROC) analyses were used to identify the optimal prediction model for SLI.

RESULTS

The original, English EpiSLI criteria (Tomblin, Records, & Zhang, 1996) yielded a sensitivity of .95 and a specificity of .45 (LR+ = 1.73, LR- = 0.11, and AUC = .79) for our bilinguals. Revised cutoff scores yielded a sensitivity of .86 and a specificity of .68 (LR+ = 2.67, LR- = 0.21, and AUC = .77). An optimal prediction model yielded a sensitivity of .81 and a specificity of .81 (LR+ = 4.37, LR- = 0.23 and AUC = .85).

CONCLUSION

The results of English testing could be used to make a reasonably accurate diagnostic decision for bilingual children who had attended public school for at least 1 year and were using English at least 30% of the time.