Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences, University of Houston, TX.
Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2023 Jul 5;54(3):996-1019. doi: 10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00149. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
This study examined the frequency, direction, and structural characteristics of code-switching (CS) during narratives by Spanish-English bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) to determine whether children with DLD exhibit unique features in their CS that may inform clinical decision-making.
Spanish-English bilingual children, aged 4;0-6;11 (years;months), with DLD ( = 33) and with typical language development (TLD; = 33) participated in narrative retell and story generation tasks in Spanish and English. Instances of CS were classified as between utterance or within utterance; within-utterance CS was coded for type of grammatical structure. Children completed the morphosyntax subtests of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment to assist in identifying DLD and to index Spanish and English morphosyntactic proficiency.
In analyses examining the contributions of both DLD status and Spanish and English proficiency, the only significant effect of DLD was on the tendency to engage in between-utterance CS; children with DLD were more likely than TLD peers to produce whole utterances in English during the Spanish narrative task. Within-utterance CS was related to lower morphosyntax scores in the target language, but there was no effect of DLD. Both groups exhibited noun insertions as the most frequent type of within-utterance CS. However, children with DLD tended to exhibit more determiner and verb insertions than TLD peers and increased use of "congruent lexicalization," that is, CS utterances that integrate content and function words from both languages.
These findings reinforce that use of CS, particularly within-utterance CS, is a typical bilingual behavior even during narrative samples collected in a single-language context. However, language difficulties associated with DLD may emerge in how children code-switch, including use of between-utterance CS and unique patterns during within-utterance CS. Therefore, analyzing CS patterns may contribute to a more complete profile of children's dual-language skills during assessment.
本研究通过考察西班牙语-英语双语儿童在叙述过程中出现的语码转换（CS）的频率、方向和结构特征，来确定是否存在语言发育障碍（DLD）的儿童在 CS 方面表现出独特的特征，这些特征可能为临床决策提供信息。
本研究纳入了年龄在 4；0-6；11 岁（年；月）的西班牙语-英语双语儿童，其中有 33 名儿童患有 DLD，33 名儿童具有典型的语言发育，他们参与了西班牙语和英语的叙述复述和故事生成任务。CS 实例被分为句间 CS 和句内 CS；句内 CS 进一步根据语法结构的类型进行编码。儿童完成了双语英语-西班牙语评估的形态句法亚测验，以协助识别 DLD，并对西班牙语和英语的形态句法熟练程度进行指标评估。
在考察 DLD 状态和西班牙语及英语熟练程度的贡献的分析中，只有 DLD 对进行句间 CS 的倾向有显著影响；在西班牙语叙述任务中，患有 DLD 的儿童比 TLD 同龄人更有可能用英语说出整个句子。句内 CS 与目标语言中较低的形态句法分数有关，但 DLD 没有影响。两个组都表现出名词插入是最常见的句内 CS 类型。然而，与 TLD 同龄人相比，患有 DLD 的儿童更倾向于插入更多的限定词和动词，并且增加了“一致的词汇化”的使用，即 CS 句子整合了来自两种语言的内容词和功能词。
这些发现强化了 CS 的使用，特别是在句内 CS，即使是在单一语言环境中收集的叙述样本中，也是一种典型的双语行为。然而，与 DLD 相关的语言困难可能会出现在儿童进行 CS 时，包括使用句间 CS 和句内 CS 的独特模式。因此，分析 CS 模式可能有助于在评估中更全面地了解儿童的双语技能。
