I was privleged to have been taught by Catherine Crowley, the Coordinator of the Bilingual/Bicultural Emphasis Track and the Bilingual Extension Institute at Columbia University. Her passion for children from a bilingual or multilingual background was remarkable and remains as such to date.
My education on language development in monolingual children was essential; however, I had to learn to throw those developmental norms out the door when it came to children from bilingual environments or those coming from other countries. I had to learn about “portfolio assessment,” “language exposure,” “language dominance,” “silent periods,” so on and so forth. My level of knowledge exploded under her guidance.
In retrospect everything I learned makes perfect sense, at the time the information seemed revoulutionary. The fact that 10 years later children are still being misdaignosed by competent SLP’s is unfortunate and must be stopped. The information is available. It’s more than high time to ensure you are evaluating and making recommendations based on valid norms and not monolingual English speaker norms.
When assessing children, it is essential to look at daily language exposure, play skills, and the communicative styles of the family and their respective culture. If a child has only been exposed to Spanish since birth and is enrolled in an English only classrrom at the age of three, should we expect them to follow verbal directions and communicate in two to three word phrases in English? Does it mean he or she is language disordered because their English is poor or they seemingly have trouble paying attention to circle time? Please say no. Now it could be the case that the child does have a delay but unless the child is assessed BOTH in their native language and the language of the dominant culture (in the US = English) in areas such as receptive language, expressive language, play skills, cognition, and their performance is evaluated over time in an academic setting it is irresponsible to give that child a label.
Children learning dual languages may appear to have attentional differences. Their performance academically may be poor. A lack of eye contact may be considered a sign of respect in their culture not a pragmatic deficit!
In a perfect world both children of immigrants and citizens would be given a dual language program at school. Research proves a full English language immersion program is detrimental to the academic growth of multilingual students and yet that is the model that persists in most states. Thousands of children are misdiagnosed as language disordered and learning impaired annually. Is it their fault or a glitch in the educational system? I could write thousands of words in response but will leave you with the following. I am a proud American but I also recognize that if I moved to Tanzania with no prior knowledge of Swahili and was expected to earn an education in a Swahili only environment…well lets just say there would be gaps, if not canyons, in my knowledge base.
Years of research has proven Basic Interpersonal Skills (BICS), meaning an ability to carry on a social conversation, develops in two to five years and CALP or Cognitive Academic Language Profoceincy Skills average seven to ten years to develop. That means in theory, if a child from a Mandarin Chinese language dominant background is exposed to English at the age of 5, he or she will be a decent conversationalist by the age of seven or eight. In comparison to monolingual peers, he or she will appear language disordered when they are not. On the contrary, JUST because a student from a bilingual background speaks in a conversational background DOES NOT mean he / she has the vocabulary or meta-skills to achieve academically.
Basic standardized assessments will not help this population. A standardized test normed on English only speakers and given to a bilingual student IS NOT VALID.
For more information read my articles on Bilingual Language Acquisition Norms, Characteristics, and ethical evaluation practices.
I want to hear from you.
- Are you taking language exposure and cultural differences into consideration when evaluating your ESL kids?
- What performance based assessments (i.e. portfolio based assessments) have been the most valid in identifying or negating a diagnosis in language disorder versus language difference?
- What cultural/language populations would you like more developmental norms for?
Please comment below.
