A brief description of the data regarding the profiles of bilinguals with LI per linguistic

1.4.3.1 Speech sound disorders in bilingual children

Due to the already mentioned difficulties in the study of disordered speech of bilinguals, such as the lack of reference norms and the variability of sound systems there are few studies on this domain.

There are indications of both commonalities and differences as regards the types of errors made by bilingual children compared to monolinguals. For instance, based on some studies the speech output between different groups of bilingual children with SSD did not differ significantly as regards the place or manner of articulation or consonant accuracy (Goldstein, 2015). On the contrary, other data suggested that bilinguals displayed a higher occurrence of certain types of errors compared to monolinguals. Also, different types of errors have been found to be distributed across different

languages (Goldstein, 2015). As mentioned earlier, phenomena such as cross-linguistic influence have been found to affect both segmental and supra-segmental elements of speech.

Where the German language is concerned, despite relatively scarce research in this domain, there is some evidence that an interplay of the type of phonological errors, i.e., atypical versus typical, psycholinguistic skills, such as nonword repetition and phone imitation, and infrequent variations of

29 phones, might determine typical from atypical development in Turkish-German bilinguals (Albrecht, 2017).

1.4.3.2 Semantic deficiencies in bilingual children

The lexical difficulties of bilinguals with PLI have been substantially researched (Kohnert, 2016). Not only is there data suggesting that bilinguals have smaller receptive and expressive vocabulary in both languages compared to their typical peers as measured through picture identification and naming tasks but, also, that these limitations are evident at connected speech level (Iluz-Cohen, 2012). Furthermore, bilinguals with PLI have been shown to have a weaker ability to produce associations between

semantically linked words compared to typical peers, which is an indication of limited overall semantic knowledge. These difficulties have been found to be comparable across languages as

measured through picture description and word association tasks (Sheng et al, 2012) and there is some evidence from bilingual LI children that nouns are more easily retrieved than verbs (Kambanaros, Grohmann & Theodorou, 2013).

As mentioned in a previous chapter, bilingualism may result in increased inter- and intra-lexical errors.

It has been found that language exposure is directly linked with lexical knowledge (McMillen, Griffin, Bedore, & Oppenheim, 2020). In general, such errors, as measured through naming tasks, might be linked to increased competition between double word representations spread between the two

languages, weaker semantic links, poor linguistic skills, as well as poorer vocabularies. As regards the type of errors in each language, these are, also, dependent on the level of linguistic exposure. An interesting study revealed that children produced more semantic errors in their dominant language as opposed to more phonological ones, as well as more “I don’t know”- type of answers in their weaker language (Sheng, Pena, Bedore, & Fiestas, 2014).

The role of DLD on semantic associations and lexical processing was the focus of a recent research by McMillen, Griffin, Peña, Bedore, & Oppenheim (2020).They pointed out that when it comes to naming tasks, bilingual-DLD children underperform on naming tasks, producing more and different types of errors compared to their peers, including more semantic and phonological errors; in the same vein, there is evidence of worse performance on word-association tasks, in the form of fewer or more unrelated associations, which is an indication of poor semantic organisation and retrieval. This is attributed to poorer lexical connectivity between the different semantic networks in the face of high lexical co-activation of competing representations (see chapters 1.1.6.2, 1.2.2) from both languages.

Not surprisingly, speed and accuracy of word-retrieval, i.e., “lexical processing efficiency”, is compromised. In their research, McMillen, and her colleagues (2020) wanted to further investigate indications from previous studies suggesting that individuals tend to be slower and less accurate during naming tasks regarding objects from the same semantic category than compared to stimuli from

30 mixed semantic categories (Dell & O’Seaghdha, 1992). This would be explained by the fact that due to a multitude of reasons the target word is activated to a lesser degree compared to the competing alternatives.

Their results confirmed their original “semantic constraint hypothesis”, based on which higher number of semantic errors are the result of inadequate activation of the target word due to less semantic connections and poorer lexical representations. Their findings showed that (bilingual) DLD children produced more errors than their typically developing peers irrespective of the test language, more phonological errors and no-responses, and that language exposure significantly affected performance on the naming tasks. It also uncovered a semantic blocking effect, by which words from mixed-semantic categories, were less demanding than stimuli from the same-category, as described earlier. In summary, some of the possible, cited interpretations for these results include the confirmation of the semantic constraint hypothesis, as well as the possibility of an important contribution of memory in converting semantic information. With regards to the role of language exposure, the authors

interestingly point out the issue of the measurement of this construct, which in that study was based on an average of the linguistic input and output; this, however, they state, may contradict the evidence that input and output affect bilingual development differently across linguistic domains. A final interesting point of this study was the conclusion that the type of errors might be crucial for

differential diagnosis. For instance, looking out for behaviours of self-correction as an indication of children’s ability to access and produce semantic information, as well as and self-monitoring as evidence of advanced cognitive abilities might point to a different diagnostic decision even in the presence of a few inaccurate answers.

In German, Ll is associated, also, with increased use of generic words, such as “machen” (do), as well as limited use of closed class words, such as pronouns, determiners (prepositions) and conjunctions.

Furthermore, the ability to separate between the different verb classes; i.e. end-product, such as

“aufessen” (eat up) versus process-oriented, such as “malen” (paint) is of high importance for the semantic acquisition of German both at productive and receptive level. Bilinguals with German as additional language have been found to require around 20 contact months to master these specific nuances regarding verb use (Schulz & Tracy, 2011). In addition, the ability to interpret and understand the above-mentioned verb categories correctly has been found to be impaired in German-speaking monolinguals with LI and is, therefore, considered as an important clinical marker for bilinguals, too.

1.4.3.3 Sentence structure weaknesses in bilingual children

Bilinguals with LI have been reported to produce shorter utterances, a larger number of grammatical errors and have weaker sentence comprehension. As Kohnert points out, however, most of the studies in this area have been conducted in one of the children’s language. Studies that have included both

31 languages have shown that bilinguals with LI appear to develop their morphological system following a similar order as typically developing bilinguals, albeit more slowly (Salameh et al, 2014). In

addition, bilinguals with LI produce shorter mean length of utterance (MLU) compared to bilingual children without LI. Where narrative skills are concerned, typically developing bilinguals have been found to make more advanced use of macrostructural elements during story retell tasks than bilinguals with LI. Finally, story comprehension is, also, impaired in bilinguals with LI (Kohnert, 2016).

In German, there is evidence that typically developing bilinguals, generally, also, acquire the specific rules of sentence assembly mentioned earlier, such as verb placement, in a comparable manner with monolinguals; therefore, any issues concerning the patterns of acquisition of said rules, would indicate the possibility of LI in bilinguals (Schulz & Tracy, 2011). Moreover, the same can be said as regards the mastery of Subject-Verb agreement, and correct verb inflection, which are both clinical markers of LI; this information, along with the fact early sequential bilinguals may acquire rules of basic verb placement within less than a contact year with German, has been employed as an additional, informal criterion of LI in this population (Rothweiler, 2006; Tracy & Thoma, 2009).

1.4.3.4 General long-term language growth

Kohnert (2016) points out an interesting observation regarding the developmental patterns of acquisition between typically developing (sequential) bilinguals and language impaired ones; in the former case the L2, if it is the majority language, will reach a higher proficiency level compared to the minority, L1 that will nonetheless continue to develop, even though less rapidly. On the other hand, in the case of LI children, there are indications that L1 might be more likely to be lost or deteriorate, leading to “linguistic attrition”, if consistent input is not ensured (Restreppo & Kruth, 2000).