One Language or Two?  Home Language or Not?
Some Answers to Questions about Bilingualism in Language-Delayed Children

 

Hanen SLPs locally and around the world tell us that they frequently have parents in their Hanen Programs with a first language other than English. With large immigrant populations on the increase in many countries, this trend is likely to continue.

 

Many parents are faced with raising a bilingual child by virtue of their immigration to a new country. In Canada, for example, almost 11% of the population (almost 3.5 million) speaks a native language other than English or French. The five most widely used languages aside from English and French (which are Canada’s two official languages) are Chinese (variety of dialects), Punjabi, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and First Nations dialects. In the United States, the second most widely used language is Spanish, with nearly 30 million primary users (roughly 10.7% of the population). 

 

These demographic and immigration trends demonstrate the need for an improved understanding of the issues surrounding bilingualism so we can support both parents and their children. Parents may have strong feelings about maintaining their language and culture and, at the same time, fear that they are taking a risk with their child’s language development by exposing him or her to two languages, especially when s/he has a diagnosed language delay.

 

As SLPs, we must educate ourselves about current research and recommendations regarding the language development of bilingual children and early language intervention. If we are familiar with the current research, we can better answer parents’ questions such as, “How should we talk to our child? Should we use one language or two?” and “If our child is language delayed, is it harmful to teach him a second language?” In addition, we can provide better early language intervention.

 

The answers to these questions seem to keep changing as research leads to changes in recommended practice. Therefore, using current and other relevant literature, this article will attempt to provide some answers to these and other important questions about how best to support families whose children are language delayed and exposed to two languages.

 

 

 

The acquisition of a second language (L2) can take place in one of two ways:

 

 

Simultaneous acquisition occurs when a child is raised bilingually from birth, or when the second language is introduced during the earliest stages of emerging language. The simultaneous acquisition process is similar to monolingual development with the child facing the additional task of distinguishing between the two language systems (Harding & Riley, 1986). However, there is no evidence to suggest that the additional burden of distinguishing between the two language systems requires a specialized language processing device or will negatively impact a child’s language development. The normal age range for the emergence of first words is the same for both monolingual and bilingual children (roughly 8-15 months). While statistically bilinguals may start talking slightly later than their monolingual counterparts, the emergence of language skills in bilinguals is still well within the normal range.

 

Generally speaking, there are three phases of simultaneous language acquisition:

 

Phase 1: A child has one, undifferentiated language system. This results in one lexicon containing words from both languages. Depending on language input from caregivers, a word from each language may be acquired for one concept and be expressed as a blend (e.g. a Spanish-English child who asks for “agua-water”). In addition, a child in Phase 1 may blend words phonetically (e.g. a French-English child who says “tati”, a mixture of “thank you” and “merci”) (Harding & Riley, 1986).

Phase 2: A child begins to differentiate lexical systems, but often shows considerable grammatical mixing. This stage is often alarming for parents who may wonder if bilingualism is going to be successful for their child. The mixing of each language can occur on numerous levels – prosodic, lexical, syntactic or phonological, especially if one language has a simpler grammatical structure than the other. This phase may last for one to two years.

Phase 3: The two languages are differentiated in vocabulary and syntax. A child may associate the two languages rigidly with people or contexts (depending largely on whether or not parents adopted the popular, “one person – one language” or “one location – one language” approach to teaching their child a second language). As in monolingual children, there might be an overextension of certain grammatical rules of each language in order to keep the two linguistic systems separate. Exceptions to grammatical rules are learned as the child becomes more confident and flexible in each language.

 

 

Sequential acquisition occurs when a second language is introduced after the first language is well-established. Some researchers use age 3 as the age when a child has basic communicative competence in L1 (Kessler, 1984). Children may go through a process of sequential acquisition if they immigrate at a young age to a country where a different language is spoken, or if the child exclusively speaks his or her heritage language at home until he/she is immersed in a school setting where instruction is offered in a different language.

 

The phases children go through during sequential acquisition are less linear than for simultaneous acquisition and can vary greatly among children. Sequential acquisition is a more complex and lengthier process, although there is no indication that non language-delayed children end up less proficient than simultaneous bilinguals, so long as they receive adequate input in both languages.

 

The following are some of the major phases and processes of sequential language acquisition:

 

Interactional Phase: Many children begin learning a second language by trying to establish social relationships. At first, they rely primarily on non-verbal communication and fixed formulas in order to interact with their peers. In play with other children, sequential acquirers quickly learn chunks of discourse such as “my turn” and “give it to me”. Such non-verbal communication coupled with simple phrases facilitates social interaction and encourages language input from peers.

 

Interference Phase: In the initial stages of language acquisition, a child uses the L1 (first language learned) system to help construct L2 (Kessler, 1984). This results in a sort of “interference”, as normal errors are produced when L1 rules are applied to L2. The amount of interference is minimal for some children while extensive for others.

 

Silent Period: Many children go through a silent period when they are first exposed to L2. This can last for several months and is most likely a time for building comprehension (Tabors, 1997). The extent of this silent phase may be related to learning style and personality. For example, sociable and more outgoing children have been found to achieve fluency in L2 faster than their shy counterparts.

 

Subtractive and Additive Bilingualism: When one language is replaced abruptly by a second language, without continued input in the first language, this results in a form of “subtractive bilingualism” (Lambert, 1975). Lambert’s concept of subtractive bilingualism involves an individual's first language being a minority language of low status (Lambert, 1975). Over time, this language is subtracted from the bilingual individual’s competence and is replaced by the second, majority language. The loss of the first language may involve a loss of the child’s identity, culture and connection to her or his community.

 

Cummins (1979) has suggested that if L1 has not reached a certain threshold of competence, then the child may become “semi-lingual”, which reflects low levels of competence in both languages. This theory proposes that "negative cognitive and academic effects. . . result from low levels of competence in both languages" (p. 230). While bilingualism has generally been considered to be of cognitive benefit, some studies have shown that it has negative effects on cognitive and academic progress. While this controversy is ongoing, Cummins (1976) explained the negative results of these studies as being associated with linguistic minorities, where the minority language was being replaced in some sense by the socially dominant one, while the studies that found a positive effect were associated with "additive bilingualism," a situation in which majority-language children acquire a second language.

 

In a review of studies purporting to provide evidence of semi-lingualism, MacSwan (2000) concluded that “the evidence supporting the semi-lingualism construct is either spurious or irrelevant to the basic claim” (MacSwan, Rolstad, Glass & Gene, 2002, p.1). Conversely, there is evidence that children considered to be semilingual or subtractive bilinguals do not differ from native speakers in terms of their linguistic competence (Hakuta & D'Andrea, 1992; Valadez, MacSwan, & Martinez, 2001).

 

 

The Critical Period hypothesis holds that young children acquire a second language with more facility and speed than adults, leading many people to believe that it is better to learn a second language before puberty. This theory of brain plasticity and learning capacity has been called into question. Other factors may account for differences in adult and child language learning. Children’s apparently effortless and rapid language acquisition may be explained by the fact that the environment is set up to engage them in frequent and optimal learning opportunities. By contrast, adults seem to have an initial advantage in their learning of vocabulary and syntax, but may never achieve native-like pronunciation.

 

Other considerations with respect to sequential language acquisition are the concepts of BICS and CALP. These terms describe two different types of language abilities found in children. BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) refers to context-bound, face-to-face communication, like the language first learned by toddlers and preschoolers, which is used in everyday social interaction. In contrast, CALP (Cognitive-Academic Language Proficiency) refers to the highly abstract, decontextualized communication that takes place in the classroom, especially in the later elementary grades. CALP involves the “language of learning”, which enables children to problem-solve, hypothesize, imagine, reason and project into situations with which they have no personal experience. It is a prerequisite for learning to read and write and for overall academic success. Children who begin acquiring a second language at the time they begin school generally take one  to two years to acquire BICS and five to seven years to acquire CALP.

 

The implications of the BICS and CALP concepts are that the child’s second language or language of the classroom needs to be sufficiently well developed for her or him to be able to meet the cognitive demands of the academic setting. This does not mean that the child’s L1 should be abandoned, however. In fact, this theory assumes that a minimum threshold of competence in L1 is required in order for a child to benefit from instruction in L2. All activities such as speaking, listening, reading or writing in both L1 and L2 facilitates the development of the whole cognitive system. However, if children are made to operate in L2 when L1 is not adequately developed, then the entire language system will be compromised and academic learning and performance will suffer (Baker, 1993; Cummins, 1980; Cummins, 1984).

 

 

 

The following key questions are addressed in an effort to provide some guidance for intervention with bilingual children:

 

 

The short answer is no. However, this question deserves further analysis.

 

Studies that have assessed bilingual children’s expressive and receptive vocabulary development by comparing combined vocabulary in L1 and L2 with the vocabularies of monolingual children found no differences between the two groups (Pearson, Fernández, Lewedeg, & Oller, 1997). Similar results were found when comparing the syntactic acquisition of young bilingual children in each language with that of monolinguals (Paradis & Genesse, 1996).

 

However, there are concerns regarding the lower levels of performance of language-minority children in certain areas of oral and written language. August & Shanahan (2006) and Uccelli & Paez (2007) reported that language minority children in the United States (Spanish, in this case) attain similar levels of performance to those of English monolinguals in terms of their word-level skills, such as decoding, word identification and spelling skills, but their text-level skills – i.e. reading comprehension and writing skills - lag considerably behind their monolingual peers. This leads to a significant disparity in literacy levels between the two groups. Other studies in the United States show bilingual students lagging behind their peers in their oral skills at age four in both English and Spanish, and especially in terms of their English vocabulary skills (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; Manis, Lindsey & Bailey, 2004). Even though it is considered disadvantageous to bilingual children to be tested in the same way as their monolingual counterparts, Uccelli & Páez (2007) argue that evaluating bilingual children’s performances on these widely used tests provides some perspective on how far behind their monolingual counterparts they are. In addition, if bilingual children’s vocabularies are too limited to allow them to learn to read in the language of instruction, these children will experience significant difficulties academically.

 

Vocabulary knowledge and narrative skills have been shown to be critical precursors to literacy for monolingual and bilingual children (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; August & Shanahan, 2006). These skills have been identified as especially vulnerable in bilingual students (Spanish/English) in the United States and the causes have been attributed to a number of factors including low socioeconomic status, a home language other than English and low levels of parent education (August, Carlo, Dressler & Snow, 2005; Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998). While the data is more extensive for vocabulary than for narrative skills, it suggests that while these disparities are not a direct consequence of bilingualism, they are a result of the interaction between the bilingual environment and the impoverished language-learning environment associated with poverty and low levels of parent education (Uccelli & Páez, 2007).

The issue of code switching, which involves switching back and forth between two languages within the same paragraph or sentence, is often raised as an indication of language delay or impairment. Some professionals consider code switching to reflect a lack of language skills or even a language delay, but it actually seems to be a natural part of becoming bilingual and a fundamental component of bilingual language (Goldstein & Kohnert, 2005). Code switching is likely a child’s attempt to mimic his or her primary caregiver, or can be construed as either the child’s ability to use multiple words (in different languages) to express the same concept, or the necessity of switching back to L1 when the appropriate word is not known in L2. Gutierrez-Clellen (1999) and Kohnert, Yim, Nett, Kan & Duran (2005) state that code switching depends on many factors, is influenced by the amount of mixed language input children receive in the home and may even be a measure of bilingual proficiency in that it reflects children’s appreciation of expected language use in certain contexts.

 

 

 

A major concern for parents of a child with language impairment is whether the addition of a second language will further delay language development and learning. Kohnert et al. (2005) state that the current belief that bilingualism is disadvantageous to children with language impairment (as compared to children with language impairment who are monolingual) is false. Because many professionals believe that the input of the second language places additional demands on a language-learning system that is already deficient, they recommend to parents that they confine their input to one language. While this approach may be well-intentioned, it can result in a child being isolated in a bilingual home in which family members communicate in a language the child cannot share. In addition, it has led to professionals failing to support the child’s home language (Thordardottir, 2002).

 

Studies suggest that exposing a language-delayed minority child to a second language does not negatively affect development. A study by Paraidis, Crago, Genesee & Rice (2003) found that seven year old Canadian children, who were language impaired and were exposed consistently to both French and English from birth, did not perform worse than their monolingual peers with language impairment on analyses of spontaneous language samples. It is important to note that children in this study experienced simultaneous acquisition of the two languages and that both languages had high status in the community, making the social context for bilingualism “additive” rather than “subtractive” (Lambert, 1975).

 

Another study compared the language abilities of children with Down syndrome being raised in bilingual homes with monolingual children with Down syndrome and found no evidence of a negative effect of the bilingualism (Kay-Raining Bird, Cleave, Trudeau, Thordardottir, Sutton & Thorpe, 2005). In this case, bilingualism was defined as “intensive, ongoing and prolonged exposure to two languages” (p. 195), one of which was English. Most of the bilingual children had French as their second language. All children had been exposed to a second language for at least 32 months (mean age was 82 months). On the English tests administered, the bilingual children scored at least as well as their monolingual counterparts.  

 

 

Gutierrez-Clellen (1999) argues that adopting a bilingual approach to intervention facilitates the development of both L1 and L2 because the processes of learning these two languages are interdependent (Cummins, 1980). “The underlying cognitive processes responsible for language processing and language acquisition (e.g. verbal working memory, perception, attention, problem-solving, affective processing) are believed to be similar across typologically different languages in monolinguals, bilinguals and second language learners” (Gutierrez-Clellen, 1999, p. 292). Based on this interrelationship, some language processing models demonstrate generalization of some aspects of language learning from L1 to L2.

 

Interventions that focus on the development of general language-learning mechanisms such as skills related to attention, perception and others mentioned above should facilitate the development of both languages (Gutierrez-Clellen, 1999). However, there is no direct transfer of skills learned from L1 to L2, and interventions in L1 should not be expected to lead to direct and observable improvements in L2 across language areas. What one can expect is a transfer of features in L1 that are also represented in L2. For example, if both languages share the feature of verb conjugation or feminine and masculine nouns and adjectives, then this would facilitate learning in L2. While Spanish and English share many similar sounding words (bebé – baby; banco – bank; ensalada – salad), which may help children transfer their learning of lexical items from one language to another, they do not share many grammatical and syntactical features (English being a Germanic language and Spanish being a Latin-based Romance language). One can imagine that children who speak and have been exposed to print in languages with different orthographies and phonological processes, such as Mandarin will find it more challenging to learn English than children exposed to two Latin-based Romance languages such as Spanish and Italian.

 

Kohnert & Derr (2004) confirm that skill transfer does not happen spontaneously between L1 and L2 since cross-language transfer is highly reliant on metacognitive and metalinguistic skills. In the absence of direct support and scaffolding, children will not automatically transfer learning from L1 to L2.

 

Kohnert et al. (2005) reported on a study by Lopez and Greenfield (2004), who investigated whether there is a predictive relationship between Spanish oral skills and English phonological awareness in 100 children attending Head Start in the US. The results showed that oral proficiency in English was the greatest predictor of English phonological awareness, but Spanish oral proficiency and Spanish phonological awareness were also significant predictors of English phonological awareness. The authors concluded that strengthening the oral proficiency and metalinguistic skills in the home language of these young children would facilitate the subsequent acquisition of English literacy skills. Because preschoolers with language impairment are at high risk for difficulties with literacy, facilitating the development of metalinguistic and phonological awareness skills in the child’s home language may be an important foundation for overall literacy and for greater gains in second language acquisition (Kohnert et al, 2005).

 

4. What kind of support of the home language should professionals offer to families?

 

While it is now widely accepted that professionals should encourage parents to continue to communicate with their children in their home language, Kohnert et al. (2005) are of the opinion that this does not go far enough. “A fundamental objective of intervention programs with preschool-age children with language impairment should be to facilitate skills in their home language” (emphasis mine)(Kohnert et al., 2005, p. 253). 

 

Kohnert et al. (2005) expand as follows:

 

“Language is a major vehicle for communicating the family’s values and expectations, expressing care and concern, providing structure and discipline and interpreting world experiences. Therefore, it seems absolutely necessary that children with LI (language impairment) and their primary care providers share a common language – a language that is developed to the greatest degree possible so that it can be used to express all of the complexities inherent in parent-child relationships across the lifespan” (p.253).

 

 

The challenge of facilitating the child’s skills in his or her first language is far greater for professionals when the home language is a minority language, which is not used widely in the broader community and educational settings. Typically-developing children under age five, who are learning a second language, are at risk of losing their existing skills in their home language or not gaining true competence in that language if systematic support is not provided (Kohnert et al, 2005).

 

Studies that measured skills in first and second languages of typically-developing linguistically diverse children between 2-5 yrs confirm that a child’s ability to maintain skills in a minority home language corresponds to the amount of systematic support and enrichment provided in this language. When these supports are not provided, children whose home language is a minority language are far less likely to develop or maintain their home language (Kohnert et al, 2005).The obvious conclusion is that children with language impairment will fare worse than their typically-developing peers in this same situation since their language-learning capacity is already impaired. This means that, without systematic support and enrichment of the home language, they will likely start school with less robust language skills in the minority language than their typically developing peers and will learn the second language at a slower pace.

 

The implications for service providers are that actively and intensively supporting the minority home language should be our greatest priority when working with families since these children need more and not less input in their home language. Since studies have shown that systematic instruction in a child’s home language is associated with later academic achievement and proficiency in the dominant language of the society at large, this should become a major focus of early language intervention. The strengthening of the home language thus provides the foundation upon which the second language is acquired (Kohnert et al, 2005).

 

In addition to supporting the child in the acquisition of his home language, speech-language pathologists in preschool and school settings need to target bilingual children’s language skills in the language of instruction. For example, in light of the poor language and early literacy skills identified in many bilingual children in the United States, vocabulary instruction in English is considered an essential component of the child’s education. A bilingual approach to language instruction is recommended, since studies have shown that concepts first taught in L1 prior to instruction in English are learned significantly faster than those taught in English only (Perozzi & Sanchez, 1992).

 

 

The most important aspect of language learning for any child is that the input is comprehensible (Gutierrez, 1999). This may sound like an obvious statement, but in terms of exposing children with language delays to more than one language, Richards (1994) goes even further to say that the input needs to be optimal and comprehensible. The “optimal” nature of the input refers to the use of child-directed speech (or responsive interaction strategies), which is known to facilitate language acquisition in young children. Therefore, helping parents provide enriched, interactive language-learning environments for their children is critical.

 

The challenge for many monolingual SLPs is how to support children’s acquisition of their home language. Kohnert et al (2005) suggest parent training as one useful option (see the article for the additional suggestion of peer mediation). Regardless of parents’ language proficiency in the dominant language, the focus of our intervention for them is the same as for any parent in any parent training: to learn to apply responsive interaction strategies consistently during everyday interactions with their child. This is easier if one or both parents are bilingual (and speak English or the dominant language) since training can take place in English and parents can be helped to transfer the techniques for use with their child into the home language. If, however, parents do not speak the dominant language, other solutions need to be found. Kohnert et al. (2005) raise the issue using paraprofessionals or community representatives to provide the training when parents do not speak the primary language of the culture and the SLPs do not speak the minority language. While such a model may lack the ongoing contribution of the SLP, they suggest that systematic, apprenticeship-type training may increase its effectiveness. They also recommend further investigation into how paraprofessionals can be successfully trained using the train-the-trainer model.

 

Owing to large caseloads and the challenges presented by parents with whom we find it difficult to communicate, SLPs may provide less intensive intervention to these families. Kohnert et al. (2005) caution against brief interventions and those which rely heavily on written materials. Successful parent training programs share some important features, such as: focus on specific strategies; incorporating varied instructional methods (e.g. demonstration, role plays/simulations, videotaped examples, coaching during parent-child interactions, specific feedback on strategy application and user-friendly written materials). Successful parent training programs adopt a systematic approach, building on the skills of both parents and children and individualizing the intervention for each child and family. Such an approach requires many sessions and must include time to allow parents to change their interactive behaviour and maintain these changes (Kohnert et al, 2005). While this description of parent training fits any Hanen Program, it can also be applied to individual sessions with parents.

 

While there are numerous challenges to providing early language intervention to linguistically diverse children with language impairments, these children and their families require intervention of the same quality and intensity as children who speak the dominant language of the culture. With appropriate and timely intervention, we can empower families and support bilingual children with language delays to reach their communicative and academic potential.

 

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