The bilingual population in the United States is one of the fastest growing school-age populations. Yet there are few diagnostic instruments that accurately distinguish between bilingual children with and without language impairment (LI). Development between 7 and 9 years of age is of interest because this is the age at which children who are acquiring a second language are more likely to be identified with LI (as compared to a younger age). While many of the children in this broad population typically have already had exposure to English, most are still within the 5 to 7 year time frame they need to acquire academic language. This makes identification of LI particularly challenging. Scientific knowledge about LI in bilingual children has improved over the last 10 years, but such knowledge has not been systematically translated into assessment instruments. Thus, an innovative aspect of this proposal is that we extend a recently developed protocol to an age group where there is a critical need for such instruments. In response to RFA-DC-05-001, Typical/Disordered Language: Phenotype Assessment Tools we have planned a two phase study to develop an upward extension of the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment (BESA; a NIDCD supported instrument) for children aged 7 to 9 years. In Phase I we develop an item set and test it on 136 Spanish English bilinguals with and without LI (focusing on 8 year olds). We then submit these items to analyses and reduce the item set to those which have the greatest potential to discriminate between children with and without LI. In Phase 2, the reduced item set will be tested on 134 bilinguals with and without LI (extending to 7 and 9 year olds). These items sets will be used to generate interrelated psychometric parallel versions of the BESA (for identification purposes) and linguistic parallel versions of the BESA (forresearch purposes). These steps will provide the information needed to conduct longitudinal studies of bilingual language development and disorders. These will be addressed in future applications. Language impairment is a developmental disability that interferes with education and other life functions of individuals. There are disparities in the identification of language impairment in minority populations such as Latino children who speak English and Spanish. This proposal addresses this concern by working to develop an assessment protocol to improve identification of bilingual children with language impairment.
