Results | ||||||
Macrostracture | Similar performance in both languages for children with TLD and those diagnosed with SLI | Bilinguals with DLD had significantly lower scores for story grammar than their TD peers | Both groups achieved below average scores on productivity, narrative structure, literate language, and language form measures from the narrative samples | Bilingual children with SLI were found to attain similar levels of performance, and even to outperform monolingual children with SLI, in macrostructure | All four groups of children showed growth over a 6-month period .Bil. children expose predominantly to English in the home performed similarly to their monolingual peers in measures of narrative information, sentence length, number of different words and first mentions | Bilingual and monolingual children with DLD scored lower on expression of causal relations |
Microstructure | Microstructure analysis of verbal productivity, length of communication units, and lexical diversity distinguished children with TLD from those with SLI | They showed similar scores for narrative microstructure components | Dual language children lower scores on standardized tests of morphosyntax but not on measures of language form derived from the narrative samples | Differences between TD children and children with SLI in microstructure | Bilingual children exposed predominantly to English in the home performed similarly to their monolingual peers in measures of sentence length, number of different words and first mentions | Bilingual TLD children produced complex narratives that resembled those of their monolingual peers in respect of causal relations and in the use of language forms as cohesive devices |