Bilingualism or Language Disorder? Why One Score Isn't Enough
From Parent Lab: Parenting Research, Explained · 13:13
Show by Shaoqing Tan
How can a bilingual child's low language score reflect experience, disorder, or both? This episode examines how researchers separate those explanations by studying the organization of children's language knowledge. We begin with Kathleen Durant and colleagues' research on Spanish–English bilingual schoolchildren, roughly ages seven to eleven, with and without developmental language disorder. We cover three questions: why meaning and grammar deserve separate attention; how a child's stronger language can differ across skills; and what makes comparisons between diagnostic groups interpretable. Related research on kindergarten language development and mixed language dominance supplies context for understanding the central finding. The most important limitation is data-driven model refinement: the same observations helped shape the measurement model and evaluate its stability, creating a risk of overly optimistic conclusions. Through concrete examples, Parent Lab explores the difference between a single score and a language profile, and why that distinction matters when home and school seem to describe different children. What becomes visible when an assessment represents more of what a child knows?
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