AldeQ questionnaire and NWR tasks (Research question and Hypothesis 6)

Regarding the specific results of the AldeQ questionnaire, the responses of the parents differentiated the two groups well. Interestingly, the mean of the control group was the same as the overall standard mean of the group mentioned in the study of Paradis, Emmerzael & Duncan (2010), whereas the caseload mean performance corresponds to a score two standard deviations below the mean. As explained in the AldeQ manual, such a performance is consistent with the profile of children showing language impairment/delay.

121 The children’s ability to repeat strings of nonsense words through the NWR task also differentiated the two groups quite well and confirms previous findings indicating that this specific instrument (Mottier test) is an effective differential diagnostic tool regarding language impairment of bilingual children (Kiese-Himmel & Risse, 2008). Also, the use of NWR tasks generally prove useful in the differential diagnosis of LI.

In relation to the expected low to moderate, positive relationships between these instruments and the dynamic scores, our results confirmed our initial hypothesis (6), especially regarding NWR performance and less so for the AldeQ questionnaire. More specifically, NWR was moderately associated with almost all Dynamic tasks, including both Vocabulary and Phonology. These results are in line with findings in previous studies (Sections 1.11.1, 1.11.2) regarding the positive relationship between NWR tasks and vocabulary acquisition and language comprehension in English, as well as German monolingual children (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990; Hasselhorn & Körner, 1997).

Furthermore, as NWR evaluates, at least partially, phonological memory and speech output, the positive correlations with the Dynamic Phonological measures indeed confirm our initial assumptions (Windsor, Kohnert, Lobitz, & Pham, 2010). Unexpected findings were the lack of any strong, positive relationships between NWR and the two last Phonology measures, i.e., Inconsistency and Stimulability.

These relationships would need to be further investigated with larger samples both with and without LI.

To our knowledge there is very little research that specifically examines the relationship between stimulability and NWR. One of the scarce studies that examined the relationship between NWR, stimulability in children with Speech Sound Disorders and intra-word production variability (which is largely the same as our Inconsistency measure), corroborates the results of our study (Macrae, 2009).

The study showed that the relationship between NWR and stimulability tasks was negligible, but unfortunately, the specific relationship between NWR and Inconsistency was not examined. The main explanation for the lack of relationship is that probably Stimulability and NWR tasks tap on slightly different domains of the Underlying Phonological Representations. Difficulties with Stimulability tasks might reveal a deficit as regards the correctness of the phonological representations, whereas NWR difficulties may reflect difficulties concerning the distinctness of these representations.

The described whole group correlations between the Dynamic measures and both for AldeQ and NWR are in line with most of the reported correlations found in the Bianco study (2015). Unfortunately, this study did not examine children’s inconsistency rate and stimulability (Phonology) as such, so these cannot be directly compared.

Finally, as regards the between group relationships, the fact that the control group’s Vocabulary performance was more frequently significantly correlated with NWR performance compared to the caseload, could be partially explained by the difference of both group sizes (as the absolute correlations

122 do not differ very much). Also, the relatively stronger correlations among Dynamic Vocabulary scores and NWR compared to Dynamic Phonology performance might be attributed to the fact that NWR tasks have been argued to not only tap on phonological abilities but, also, on general linguistic knowledge (Windsor, Kohnert, Lobitz, & Pham, 2010). For instance, measures of receptive lexical knowledge have been found to be significant predictors of NWR performance both in children with and without phonological difficulties, indicating that mastery of adult-like phonological representations is affected by progress in the lexical domain (Munson, Edwards & Beckmann, 2005).

The lack of positive, significant associations between the vocabulary scores and the AldeQ responses might be the result of within group variability (particularly for the LI children). This variability could be caused by both “bilingual” as well as “monolingual” factors, as presented earlier. On the other hand, phonology (pronunciation) errors might be easier to recognise and report for parents, compared to any word-related issues, especially in a L2 that they themselves might not be proficient in. Speech sound difficulties, however, might be present in both languages or easier to spot in the L2.

Furthermore, upon closer inspection of the type of questions of the AldeQ questionnaire, it can be noticed that although there is more than one direct or indirect question about children’s current level of pronunciation (phonology), this is not the case with vocabulary. The latter are incorporated in more general questions about the child’s “level of expression”. In that sense, parents’ responses on the AldeQ question “how do you think that your child expresses him/herself?” might reflect a phonological or speech sound difficulty. This, in turn, might have been confirmed or “associated” by the children’s performance on said tasks, explaining the higher association between these domains. In the future, a similar study could focus more specifically on the association of specific AldeQ items with each component of the Dynamic instrument.

For reference, the existing studies reporting moderate correlations among performance on direct linguistic tasks and parental questionnaires, such as AldeQ, were either based on samples of children with linguistic difficulties with no specific mention to phonological issues or CLD children without LI.

(Abbot-Smith, Morawska-Patera, Łuniewska, Spruce, & Haman, 2018; Tuller, Abboud, Ferré, Fleckstein & Prévost, 2014). Finally, going back to parents’ perception of some of the AldeQ questions, it is possible that despite the translations and the effort for best possible explanations, some of them might have not fully understood the content of all questions.

Finally, an important issue regarding the relationship among the Dynamic tasks and the AldeQ was the remarkable lack of significant between-group level associations. This might have occurred because the correlations were inflated due to the “effect” of joining two disjunct groups with relatively large differences in scores. Also, the difference in sample size might have affected this result, too. Lastly, the existence of significant whole group correlations but not within the subgroups shows that there is

123 discrimination between the level of groups, for both AldeQ and NWR. Again, no direct comparison could be made with the Bianco study as the only reported correlations refer to whole group

performance.