American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Convention – San Diego – 17-19 November 2011
Sharynne McLeod, Ph.D. - Charles Sturt University, Australia
http://geology.com/world/world-map.shtml
Seminar outline
Why an SLP should care about languages other than English
2. Multilingual speech acquisition
1.
a)
3.
Bi-dialectal speech acquisition in Jamaica
Assessment and analysis
Assessment of the speech of
a) children in Turkey
b) Spanish-English bilingual children in the USA
c) children in Hong Kong
d) children in Malta
4. Intervention for multilingual children with SSD
Learner outcomes
 Describe aspects of typical and atypical speech during
multilingual acquisition.
 Acknowledge differences between culturally
appropriate assessment practices for multilingual
children in different countries.
 Describe approaches to intervention for multilingual
children with speech sound disorders.
Declarations
 Session was invited by ASHA Speech
Sound Disorders in Children Convention
Committee
 Speakers have based their presentations
on chapters in the following book
 McLeod, S. & Goldstein, B. A. (Eds).
(2012). Multilingual aspects of speech
sound disorders in children. Bristol, UK:
Multilingual Matters.
Under-referral of bilingual children
with speech sound disorder
2-year study of 250 children in UK
 “There is evidence that bilingual children
with speech disorders are being overlooked.”
 Referrals for concerns about speech sounds
 58% of monolingual children vs. 26% of bilingual
 Referrals for concerns about expressive language
 22% of monolingual children vs. 35% of bilingual
Stow, C., & Dodd, B. (2005). A survey of bilingual children referred for investigation of communication disorders: A comparison with
monolingual children referred in one area in England. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 3(1), 1-23.
Multilingual children in SLP clinics
“There is no reason why bilingualism
should lead to a greater or lesser need
for speech and language therapy (SLT).
If there are proportionately more or less
bilingual than monolingual children
receiving SLT then this difference may be an
indication of inequality”
(Winter, 2001, p. 465)
Winter, K. (2001). Numbers of bilingual children in speech and language therapy: Theory and practice of measuring their
representation. International Journal of Bilingualism, 5(4), 465-495.
Brian A. Goldstein, Ph.D. – Temple University, PA, USA
Sharynne McLeod, Ph.D. – Charles Sturt University, Australia
“As SLPs increasingly assess and treat
children from varying linguistic
backgrounds, knowledge of typical
acquisition must expand beyond
descriptions of developmental milestones
based predominantly on studies of
English…” (Davis, 2007, p. 51).
Davis, B. (2007). Applications of typical acquisition information to understanding of speech impairment. In S. McLeod (Ed.), The
International guide to speech acquisition (pp. 50-54). Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.
Studies of multilingual children’s
speech acquisition (written in English)
 Include combinations of the following languages:
 Arabic, Cantonese, Dutch, English, Farsi, French,
German, German, Gujarati, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian,
Maltese, Mirpuri, Norwegian, Pakistani heritage
languages, Putonghua, Romanian, Russian, Samoan,
Spanish, Swedish, Urdu, Welsh
Multilingual speech acquisition
 In comparison to monolingual children, multilingual
children exhibit speech sound skills that are
 positive transfer: more advanced than their monolingual
peers.
 negative transfer: less advanced than their monolingual peers.
 cross-linguistic transfer
 Speech sound skills are not simply mirror images of each
other in the two languages but are distributed somewhat
differently in each constituent language, owing to the
phonotactic properties of the languages being acquired.
(Goldstein & McLeod, 2011, p. 84)
Goldstein, B. A. & McLeod, S. (2012). Typical and atypical multilingual speech acquisition. In S. McLeod & B. A. Goldstein (Eds.)
Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Positive transfer
 Occurs when children learning more than one language have
enhanced skills compared with monolingual peers
 Commensurate skills (Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein, 2010)
 Examples in typical children
 Maltese-English (Grech & Dodd, 2008)
 Russian-English (Gildersleeve-Neumann &Wright, 2010)
 Spanish-German (Kehoe, Trujillo, & Lleó, 2001)
 Spanish-English (Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein, 2010)
 Examples in children with speech sound disorders
 Italian-English (Holm & Dodd, 1999b)
 Mirpuri-English, Urdu-English (Holm, Dodd, Stow, & Pert, 1998)
 Spanish-English (Goldstein, 2000)
Negative transfer
 Occurs when multilingual children’s speech and
language acquisition is less advanced than for
monolingual children
 Examples in typical children


Spanish-English (Fabiano-Smith & Goldstein, 2010;
Gildersleeve, Davis, and Stubbe, 1996; Gildersleeve-Neumann,
Kester, Davis, & Peña, 2008; Goldstein & Washington, 2001)
Cantonese-English (Holm & Dodd, 1999a)
Cross-linguistic transfer
 Found in typically developing multilinguals (Holm & Dodd, 2006)
and those with SSD (e.g., Goldstein, Bunta, Lange, Burrows, Pont, &
Bennett, 2008)
 ≈ 1% (Fabiano & Goldstien, 2005)
 Bi-directional
 use of Spanish during English production; for example:
/v/ → [b]; /vot/ → [bot]
 /ʃ / → [ʧ ]; /fɪʃ / → [fɪʧ ]
 use of English during Spanish productions; for example:
 /r/ → [ɹ ]; /ropa/ → [ ɹ opa]
 /ɾ / → [ɚ ]; [floɾ / → [floɚ ]

 Monolingual children also use sounds not in their ambient
language (Smit, 1993)
Factors influencing multilingual
speech acquisition
 “Whether it is a question of French or Scandinavian
children, of English or Slavic, or Indian or German, or
of Estonian, Dutch or Japanese children, every
description based on careful observation repeatedly
confirms the striking fact that the relative
chronological order of phonological acquisitions
remains everywhere and at all times the same...
the speed of this succession is, in contrast, exceedingly
variable and individual ...”
(Jakobson, 1968, p. 46, emphasis added)
 SUBSEQUENTLY FOUND NOT TO BE TRUE
Three factors influencing
multilingual speech acquisition
 Phonetic complexity (ease of production):
the articulatory difficulty/ease producing a sound
 Functional load: how often a sound contrasts
with other phonemes (Meyerstein, 1970)
 For example, in English /ð/ (voiced th) has a
low functional load (since it is in only a few words);
in Greek it has a high functional load
 Phonetic frequency: how often a sound occurs
 For example, in English /ð/ has high phonetic frequency,
since words such as the, this, that are frequent
(Ingram, 2011)
Phonetic complexity,
functional load, phonetic frequency
 Child’s age of emergence of sounds
 Chinese : predicted by phonetic frequency
 English: best predicted by functional load
 Accuracy of production
 English: best predicted by phonetic complexity
 Dutch: not predicted by phonetic complexity
 Late acquisition of complex consonants
 Arabic: predicted by phonetic complexity
Stokes, S. F., Klee, T., Carson, C. P., & Carson, D. (2005). A phonemic implicational feature hierarchy of phonological contrasts for
English-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, Hearing Research, 48(4), 817-833.
One generalization
 “Phonemes with high functional load in a
language will be acquired earlier by both typically
developing children and by children with
phonological deficits” (Ingram, 2012)
Ingram, D. (2012). Cross-linguistic and multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. In S. McLeod & B. A. Goldstein
(Eds.), Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children (pp. 3-12). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Multilingualism does not cause speech
and language impairment
 “A disorder in bilinguals is not caused by
bilingualism or cured by monolingualism”
(Kohnert, 2008)
 “Being monolingual in a bilingual family or
community exacerbates a weakness, turning
a disability into a handicap” (Kohnert, 2008, pp. 143-144)
Karla N. Washington – University of Cincinnati, USA
Outline
 An introduction to Jamaican Creole
(Jamaican Patois) – Phonology
 Speech and language services
 Research on Jamaican Creole speech
and language acquisition
 Jamaican Creole – A sample
Jamaican Creole - Introduction
 Two polar language varieties co-exist in Jamaica:
 Jamaican English (the acrolect, high status)
Putatively the Queen’s English
 Considered to be the Official Language
 Used formally both in written and oral forms

 Jamaican Creole (the basilect, low status)
An oral language, resulting from multiple
etymologies: English, West African, French languages
 Considered to be the National Language
 Used informally

The Jamaican Diaspora
 This movement has facilitated the introduction of
Jamaican cuisine, music, and language to new
Mi de ya ha
immigrant countries, like the United States.
HASHA
hiina San
Diiyego
Ackee & Saltfish –
National Dish
Reggae Music –
Bob Marley
Language –
Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Creole - Phonology
 Jamaican Creole phonology consists of 33 different
phonemes
 21 consonant sounds (/ɵ/ and /ð/ are not present)
 12 vowel sounds (long , short, diphthongs)
 Orthographically similar to Jamaican English
consonants, with voiced and voiceless cognates
 Dissimilar to Jamaican English due to:
 /h/ deletion or insertion (e.g., hand  [an])
 Labialization (e.g., boy  [bʷai] )
 Use of different vowels (e.g., /aa/  maaga “skinny”)
Jamaican Creole - Phonology
Consonants
voiced
voiceless
/m, n, ŋ, b, d, v, z, ʤ, ɹ, j, l, w/
/p, k, t, f, s, h, ʧ/
Vowels
short
long
diphthongs
Harry (2006)
/i, e, a, o, u/
/ii, aa, uu/
/ ai, ia, ua, au/
Speech and Language Services
 Government-funded speech and language services
are not available in Jamaican schools
 Registered and regulated professionals with a
Master’s degree in speech therapy or more
advanced degree in speech pathology provide
access to these services
 In other migrant countries Jamaican Creolespeaking children with speech sound disorders are
likely to receive services in the local variety of
English rather than in Jamaican Creole
Speech and Language Services
Thoughts on Assessment ...
Consider difference versus disorder
1.

Familiarize self with sounds/patterns of Jamaican Creole
2. Conduct interviews (e.g., parents, teachers)


Background information about development of L1 (i.e., Jamaican
Creole)
Information on classroom performance/behaviour
Consider that children might code switch
3.

Your presence may cause children to change their productions
4. Collect a speech sample

Observation in the classroom/clinic
Use of formal articulation (and phonology) measures
5.

Broad and narrow transcription
Research on Jamaican Creole
 Jamaican Creole is an oral language, thus
little is known about its acquisition
 Dearth of research on acquisition, none
from a speech-language perspective
 Information on the number of Jamaican
Creole-speaking children with speech
sound disorders is therefore not known
Research on Jamaican Creole
 This type of information is needed to
guide speech-language service
provision
 Jamaican Creole is a distinguishing part
of Jamaican culture
 A further investigation of this language
and its people is needed
Jamaican Creole – A Sample
 Context
 The Yallahs River in St. Thomas, Jamaica overflowed its
banks as a result of heavy rainfall




Some roads were washed away, including one specific bridge
People on the scene were interviewed by a news team
An interview was conducted with a “memorable” local named
Clifton Brown, who highlighted the dangers of trying to cross the
washed away bridge
A musical “re-mix” of this interview was created:
“Nobody Canna Cross It”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504784_162-20071653-10391705.html
Thank you!
/tæŋk ʊ nʊ /
Received Pronunciation
Sharynne McLeod, Ph.D.
Charles Sturt University, Australia
The International Classification
of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)
ICF is endorsed and/or used by
 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
(ASHA)
 Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
(ASHA, 2001)
 Preferred Practice Patterns for the Profession of SpeechLanguage Pathology (ASHA, 2004a)
 Scope of Practice in Audiology (ASHA, 2004b)
 Quality of Communication Life Scale (Paul et al., 2004)
 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists
(RCSLT)
 Canadian Association of Speech-Language
Pathologists and Audiologists (CASLPA)
 Speech Pathology Australia (SPA)
Assessing structure and function of
oromusculature and hearing mechanism
 Children who have been born in another country may not
have had developmental health checks
 Test hearing and oromusculature structure and function
 Oromusculature assessment


Include consideration of whether there is a cleft lip/palate
(including a bifid uvula or submucosal cleft)
Diadochokinesis (DDK): Normative information for



English (Williams & Stackhouse, 2000)
Brazilian Portuguese (Wertzner, Alves, & de Oliveira Ramos, 2008)
Thai (Prathanee, Thanaviratananich, & Pongjanyakul, 2003) etc.
 Possibly examine swallowing and feeding functioning
Assessing speech function:
SLPs’ assessments with multilingual children
 Most always used
 Informal assessment procedures
 English-only standardized tests
 Few used
 Standardized tests in child’s first language
 Developed local norms
 Similar results in 2 countries
 USA (Skahan, Watson, & Lof, 2007)
 Australia (Baker & McLeod, 2011; Williams & McLeod, 2011)
Skahan, S. M., Watson, M., & Lof, G. L. (2007). Speech-language pathologists' assessment practices for children with suspected
speech sound disorders: Results of a national survey. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 16(3), 246-259.
Williams, C. J. & McLeod, S. (2011, in press). Speech-language pathologists’ assessment and intervention practices with multilingual
children. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 14(3).
Assessing speech function:
Articulation/phonology tests
 Monolingual speech assessments in
 Arabic, Cantonese, Dutch, Finnish, French, German,
Greek, Hungarian, Israeli Hebrew, Japanese, Korean,
Maltese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Putonghua, Samoan,
Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
 Bilingual speech assessments in
 Maltese-English
 Spanish-English
 Pakistani-heritage languages
(Mirpuri, Punjabi, Urdu)-English
 Russian-German, Turkish-German
Assessing speech function:
Designing measurement tools
 Conceptualization
 Purpose
 Intended population
 Target skill
 Scope
 Operationalization: Testing a test
 Reliability: Does the test provide a consistent measure?
 Validity: Does the test measure what it claims to?
 Item analysis
 Sensitivity and specificity
 Standardization (see McCauley & Swisher, 1984)
McCauley, R., & Swisher, L. (1984). Psychometric review of language and articulation tests for preschool children. Journal of Speech
and Hearing Disorders, 49, 34-42.
McLeod, S. (2012). Translation to practice: Creating sampling tools to assess multilingual children’s speech. In S. McLeod & B. A.
Goldstein (Eds.) Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Analysis: Difference vs. disorder
Describe the patterns used by the speaker
2. Identify ways these patterns differ from typical speakers
1.



A multilingual child with a speech sound disorder will exhibit
characteristics of disorder in all languages
The types of errors may differ across languages (Yavaş & Goldstein,1998)
e.g., more final consonant deletion in English than in Spanish
(Goldstein & Washington, 2001)
Determine the impact of any disordered patterns on
communication
4. Provide information for developing intervention goals
5. Provide a basis for assessing changes during intervention
3.
Grunwell, P. (1982). Clinical phonology. Rockville, MD: Aspen Systems.
Scarpino, S. E., & Goldstein, B. A. (2012). Analysis of the speech of multilingual children with speech sound disorders. In S. McLeod
& B. A. Goldstein (Eds.), Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children (pp. 196-206). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Body function:
Dynamic assessment of speech
 Dynamic assessment identifies learning potential
 Dynamic speech assessments typically involve
systematic assessment of stimulability of sounds
 (Glaspey & Stoel-Gammon, 2007)
 When working with multilingual children
 test-teach-test is better for differential diagnosis
between difference and disorder
 testing the limits and graduated prompting are best
used for determining readiness for intervention progress
 (Gutiérrez-Clellen & Peña, 2001)
Gutiérrez-Clellen, V. F., & Peña, E. (2001). Dynamic assessment of diverse children: A tutorial. Language, Speech, and Hearing
Services in Schools, 32(4), 212-224.
Activities and participation:
Parent report measures
 FOCUS (Focus on the Outcomes of Communication
Under Six) (Thomas-Stonell et al., 2010)





1. My child’s speech is clear.
26. My child makes friends easily.
27. My child is comfortable when communicating.
28. My child can communicate independently.
29. My child needs help to be understood by other children.
 Intelligibility in Context Scale (McLeod et al., 2011)


Do you understand your child?
Do your child’s friends understand your child?
Thomas-Stonell, N. L., Oddson, B., Robertson, B., & Rosenbaum, P. L. (2010). Development of the FOCUS (Focus on the Outcomes of
Communication Under Six), a communication outcome measure for preschool children. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 52,47-53
McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J. & McCormack, J. (2011, in press). Intelligibility in Context Scale: Validity and reliability of a subjective rating measure.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
Activities and participation:
“How do you feel about the way you talk?”
Monolingual English-speaking children’s insights into becoming bilingual at 4
time points (over 15 months): 1 x before moving; 3 x after moving to Germany
Samantha
Time 1
Time 2
Time 3
Time 4




“nervous”
Bowser




Samantha: “I get frustrated because I repeat myself over and over again
and try and speak the best German I can and it doesn’t work out and it
gets really frustrating.” (time 4)
McLeod, S. (2011, January). Becoming bilingual: Children’s insights about sequential bilingualism. Asia Pacific Society for the Study of Speech, Language and
Hearing, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Activities and participation:
“Draw yourself talking to someone”
Time 1
(English)
Time 3
(German +
English)
Time 2
(English
+ ???)
Time 4
(German)
McLeod, S. (2011, January). Becoming bilingual: Children’s insights about sequential bilingualism. Asia Pacific Society for the Study of Speech, Language and
Hearing, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Environmental factors:
Language competency and use
 For each language spoken it is useful to map
 the length of time the language has been spoken,
 proficiency in the language,
 its frequency of use, and the
 the context the language is used (Stow & Dodd, 2003)
 language history of the countries the child has lived in
(and, where they intend to live)
Stow, C., & Dodd, B. (2003). Providing an equitable service to bilingual children in the UK: A review. International Journal of
Language and Communication Disorders, 38(4), 351–377.
Environmental factors:
Bilingual Dominance Scale (for adults)
 Quick scale with 12 questions
 If you have a foreign accent, which language(s) is it in?
 If you had to choose which language to use for the rest
of your life, which language would it be?
 Focuses on “percent of language use for both
languages, age of acquisition and age of comfort for
both languages, and restructuring of language fluency
due to changes in linguistic environments” (p. 273)
 Validated on 102 Spanish-English bilingual adults
Dunn, A. L., & Fox Tree, J. E. (2009). A quick, gradient Bilingual Dominance Scale. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(3),
273-289.
Environmental factors:
Scales of language use for children
 5 point scales
 Language competency


0 = cannot speak the indicated language
4 = native-like proficiency with few grammatical errors
 Language use
 0 = the child never heard or used the particular language
 4 = the language was heard and used by the child a great deal
 (Bunta et al., 2009; Goldstein & Bunta, 2010; Peña, Bedore, &
Rappazzo, 2003)
 Percentage of use
 Asked parents to calculate % of use over a week
 including activities, language used and conversational partners.
 (Goldstein, Bunta, Lange, Rodriguez, & Burrows, 2010)
Environmental factors:
Alberta Language and Development Questionnaire
 Method for quantifying multilingual children’s early
milestones, language use, preferences, and family history
 Not specific to a particular language/cultural group
 Psychometrically validated measure
 139 typical Canadian children +29 with language
impairment
 The scoring criteria allows for consideration of children
who have experienced war, trauma, or lack of funds.
 If a child scores less than 1.25 standard deviations below
the mean their score is more consistent with a child with
language impairment than a typically developing child.
Paradis, J., Emmerzael, K., & Duncan, T. S. (2010). Assessment of English language learners: Using parent report on first language
development. Journal of Communication Disorders, 43(6), 474-497.
Impact of environmental and
personal factors on assessment (1)
 Consider
 Generalized socio-cultural factors alongside
 Individual beliefs and practices and
 Families’ cultural perspectives
 These will impact
 parent-child interactions
 family acknowledgment of disability
 access to and engagement with SLP services
Impact of environmental and
personal factors on assessment (2)
 Formality of testing
 Impacts dialect density in African American English
(Seymour & Seymour, 1977; Stockman, 2008)
 Samoan has a formal and colloquial register with different
consonants in each register (Ballard & Farao, 2008)
 Code switching
 Pakistani heritage-English (Pert & Letts, 2006)
 Maltese-English (Grech & Dodd, 2008)
 Engagement with stimuli
 Children may not touch items (Friend & Keplinger, 2008)
Gould, J. (2009). There is more to communication than tongue placement and 'show and tell': Discussing communication from a
speech pathology perspective. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 29(1), 59-73.
Environmental and personal
factors relevant to the SLP
 SLPs will never be able to speak all of the languages
that are spoken by their clients.
 During assessment, all SLPs should
“develop sensitivity to their own social interactive
styles and cultural biases relative to language sampling
variables” (Stockman, 1996, p. 365)
Best practice for assessment
 Evidence-based practice has primarily focussed on
intervention for monolingual-English children
 Assessment practices with multilingual children now are
receiving greater attention
 Assessment of children from non-dominant cultural
backgrounds remains a challenge
 However, as SLPs from around the world continue
to share their knowledge, our practices are enhanced,
and multilingual children’s assessment (and intervention)
is more informed
McLeod, S. & Goldstein, B. A. (Eds). (2012). Multilingual aspects of speech sound disorders in children. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Williams, A. L., McLeod, S. & McCauley, R. J. (Eds.) (2010). Interventions for speech sound disorders in children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
McLeod, S. (Ed). (2007). The international guide to speech acquisition. Clifton Park, NY: Cengage.
Seyhun Topbaş - Anadolu University , Turkey
Linguistic & cultural variety
 There are many speech communities in Turkey whose
first language is not Turkish.
 Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, and other European
languages such as Greek, Bulgarian, and Armenian
have also been spoken since the time of the Seljuk and
Ottoman Empires.
 International immigration and mobility have also been
changing the structure of the society.
Why concern for SLP?
 Turkish is the official language and the medium of
instruction in education is in Turkish as L1.
 A second language, mainly English, is taught as a
foreign language in primary schools begining from
grade 4 ( about 9 years of age).
 Thus, a child whose L1 is not Turkish, is exposed to
Turkish as L1 in primary schools and then to a foreign
language.
Why concern for SLP?
 Currently, there is a growing interest for bilingual
population mainly because:
 Those children whose mother tongue is not Turkish do
not receive necessary formal (both nursery and primary)
additional support in either language.
 This contributes negatively to the level of linguistic
development of children in both languages.
 There are vast regional disparities, where the lowest
enrolment rates in pre-primary and primary education
are observed in South-eastern and Eastern Anatolian
provinces.
 The largest bilingual population of these minority
languages is Kurdish-Turkish. Kurdish (Kurmanji and
Zaza dialects) is the first language of about 12.98%
inhabitants around South-eastern and Eastern Turkey.
 Kurdish children generally learn Kurdish at home and
begin learning Turkish as their second language (L2)
via the media at home and outside and/or formally at 7
when they go to school (Derince, 2010).
 Most Kurdish-Turkish speaking children do not fully
fit the definition of either simultaneous or sequential
bilinguals.
 Because Kurdish is not allowed as the medium of
instruction in the primary schools, a mismatch occurs
between the language spoken at home and the
medium of instruction at school.
 In the school context, children have to learn literacy
skills and instructional content of science and
mathematics in Turkish which may lead to some
reading and writing problems, and academic learning
difficulties in L2 (i.e., Turkish).
 The danger is that this situation may lead to
disadvantage, and stigmatization of being language
impaired.
 Due to the reduced amount of both languages the
language characteristics of these children may
superficially resemble children with specific language
impairments and it is often difficult to differentiate
language impairments at the early phases of sequential
bilingualism.
 It is important to identify these difficulties in
languages in order to understand, whether the
difficulty is stemming from a lack of exposure to either
language or specific to impairment and if so, what
intervention or remedial approaches are needed.
 Phonology allows one of the promising assessment
domains.
ASSESSMENT
 Currently, there are no tools to assess speech and
language performance of Kurdish children.
 An SLP is competent enough to collect data, analyse
the differences and similarities from the speech
samples in the two languages and can demonstrate
whether the differences are due to impairment or not.
Case Example Age: 3;6
Target Turkish Child
/yatak/
[yatax]
(bed)
/kulak/
[qulax]
(ear)
/gazete/
[xestə]
(newspaper)
/kız/
[qıs]
(girl)
/kaşık/
[qaîx]
(spoon)
/koltuk/
[qotıx]
(armchair)
IMPLICATIONS
 A person who is not an SLP may interpret such a
difference as a disorder; however, either the place or
manner of articulation was preserved in most of the
words, resembling a dialectal difference.
 Identification of these difficulties in languages is
important to show whether the difficulty is stemming
from a lack of exposure to either language or specific to
impairment and in either case, what intervention or
remedial approaches are needed.
 Thus, phonology allows one of the promising
assessment domains for disentangling the two and to
observe how speech impairment may be manifested.
Raúl F. Prezas - Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX
Raúl Rojas - University of Texas at Dallas, TX
Bilingual Spanish-English
children in USA
 1990-2005
 Bilingual children in school (“ELLs”) more than doubled
 75% of ELLs are native Spanish-speaking children
 Explosive growth of bilingual children
 Growing demand for bilingual speech-language services
Assessing bilingual children
 The Federal Government (IDEA, 2004) and ASHA
(2010) concur
 Non-biased and accurate assessment of bilingual
children
 Assess the native and second language, “unless it is
clearly not feasible to do so” – IDEA, Section
612(a)(6)(b)
Speech sound disorders (SSDs)
 Majority of clinical caseloads in US schools?
 Children with SSDs! (ASHA, 2011)
 Developmental milestones and assessment protocols
available for diagnosing SSDs in English monolinguals
 Similar resources scarce for bilingual children
 Contextual Probes of Articulation Competence-Spanish
(CPAC-S; Goldstein & Iglesias, 2006)
 Hodson-Prezas Assessment of Phonological Patterns
(Hodson & Prezas, 2010)
Bilingual assessment of SSDs
 Recommended practices
 Collecting background information



Family concerns
Dialect(s) spoken
Program (English immersion, dual-language)
 Use of support personnel, if needed


Interpreters
Collaboration with bilingual speech-language pathologists
(SLPs)
 Testing phonological skills in both languages

Determination – scores low in one language or both?
 Assessment practices
 Single word + connected speech samples
 Phonetic inventory – strengths/weaknesses both languages
 Estimates of intelligibility in known/unknown contexts
 Relational Analysis
 Accuracy of shared (e.g., /p/ in both languages) Cs
 Accuracy of unshared (e.g., Spanish trill /r/; English /v/) Cs
 Error Analysis
 Rule out cross-linguistic effects (e.g., substituting American
liquid /ɹ/ for Spanish flap /ɾ/ and trill /r/)
 Phonological Pattern Analysis
 Common patterns (e.g., cluster reduction)
 Uncommon patterns (e.g., initial consonant deletion)
Fabiano (2007)
Dialectal considerations
 Highest prevalence in US – Mexican & Puerto Rican
Spanish (consonant differences)
 Children from Mexican descent with adult-like speech
vs. other dialects:
 Sequences with /s/

Escuela = /eskwela/ vs. /ehkwela/ or /e_kwela/

Pescado = /peskaðo/ vs. /pehkaðo/ or /pe_kaðo/
 Final Consonants (e.g., /s/)
 Dos = /dos/ vs. /doh/ or /do_/
 Guantes = /wantes/ vs. /wanteh/
 Liquids (i.e., /l/ and /r/)
 Verde = /beɾðe/ /vs. /belðe/
Goldstein (2004); Prezas (2008)
Severity continuum
Deviation Types and Phonological Repertoires
Severity
Omissions
Substitutions
Repertoires
Profound
Extensive
Frequent
Negligible
Severe
Frequent
Extensive
Limited
Moderate
Occasional
Occasional
Emerging
Mild
Rare
Limited
Near typical
Adapted from Hodson (2007)
Metaphonological assessment
 Rhyming & alliteration/onset
 Oddity & matching
 Segmenting & blending
 Word, Syllable, Onset & Rime (e.g., sh+eep);
Body & Coda (shee+p); Phonemes (sh+ee+p)
 Manipulation
 Substitutions, Deletions
 Invented/developmental spelling
 Naming (production tasks)
 Multisyllabic Words, Pseudowords, Rapid Naming
Collaboration with personnel
 Classroom teacher
 Communication and collaboration
 Training teacher to serve as second listener
 Using teacher “expertise” (e.g., Spanish)
 Spanish-speaking co-worker/colleague
 Other teacher on campus
 Secretary/aid
 Bilingual SLP staff
 District diagnostician
 Collaboration with monolingual SLPs
David Ingram - Arizona State University, USA
Two Aspects of Assessment
 1. Dimensions: Single dimension vs. Multiple
dimensions, e.g. Processes vs. Multiple levels
 2. Similarities (Differences): across children (inter-
child variation, and within children (intra-child
variation), e.g.
inter-child: monolingual vs. bilingual acquisition
intra-child: change over time
Dimensions
1. Basic Analysis (Ingram & Ingram, 2001): 4 levels
whole-words (complexity & proximity); word
shapes ; phonetic inventories (onsets & codas);
matches and substitutions (onsets and codas)
2. MAPS (Phonological Assessment of
Phonological Similarity, Ingram & Dubasik
2011): 9 quantitative measures across the 4
levels of the basic analysis; used for both interand intra-child analyses
Similarity
 How to measure similarity?
 Measure similarity across measures, and quantify
similarity into a percentage score from 100% to 0%
for each measure
 First developed to compare phonological
acquisition in Spanish-English bilingual twins
(Ingram, Dubasik, Liceras & Fuentes Fernandez
2010)
Some Results
 1. Inter- and Intra-child analyses of Spanish-
English bilingual twins
 2. Comparison of English-speaking twins vs nontwins
 3. Comparison of Spanish-speaking typically
developing three-year-olds vsl age-matched
children suspected of having a speech sound
disorder
Bilingual Twins
 Measures











Leo
Simon
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------pMLU Targets
100%
80%
pMLU Child
60% (Spanish)
70% (Spanish)
Proximity
30% (Spanish)
80%
Prop. Monosyllables
50% (English)
40% (English)
Preferred Syllables
80%
90%
Articulation Scores Onsets 100%
70% (Spanish)
Articulation Scores Codas
80%
60% (English)
Number of Matches Onsets 60% (Spanish)
60% (Spanish)
Number of Matches Codas 90%
60% (English)
-----------------------------------Overall Similarity
73%
68%
Children showed language separation
Bilingual Twins
 Measures












Leo vs. Simon (English)
Leo vs. Simon (Spanish)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------pMLU Targets
100%
90%
pMLU Child
100%
100%
Proximity
90%
70% (Leo)
Prop. Monosyllables
100%
100%
Preferred Syllables
100%
100%
Articulation Scores Onsets 80%
100%
Articulation Scores Codas
90%
90%
Number of Matches Onsets 90%
100%
Number of Matches Codas 50% (Simon)
100%
-----------------------------------Overall Similarity
88%
94%
 Children were highly similar within languages
Twins vs Non-Twins
Measures
Leo
Jane
Rachel
Jennika
Simon
Lucy
Samuel
Daniel
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------pMLU Targets
100%
80%
60%
100%
pMLU Child
100%
90%
70%
90%
Proximity
90%
50%
90%
80%
Monosyllables
100%
100%
50%
100%
IA: Onsets
80%
60%
80%
0%
IA: Codas
90%
90%
90%
60%
RA: Onsets
90%
80%
80%
0%
RA: Codas
50%
100%
100%
100%
-----------------------------------------------Overall Similarity
88%
85%
81%
68%
Identical twins were more alike than non-identical twins; children closer
in age were more alike than children further apart in age
Spanish Speaking 3-Year-Olds
Comparison of Phonological Systems at Time 1 vs Time 2 (approx. 9 months later)
Measures
Child 1
Child2
Child3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------pMLU Child
100%
70%
80%
Proximity
100%
60%
70%
IA: Onsets
90%
90%
70%
IA: Codas
100%
90%
90%
RA: Onsets
80%
80%
80%
RA: Codas
80%
80%
20%
-------------------------------------------------------Overall Similarity
92%
75%
68%
Child 1 showed some improvement in final consonant matches; child 2
improve across levels, especially in whole word measures; child 3 showed most
gains, especially in final consonant matches
Conclusion
 Multidimensional phonological analyses
combined with a measure of phonological
similarity provides insights into:
 Monolingual vs. bilingual acquisition;
 Twins vs. non-twins;
 Age differences between siblings
 Intra-child acquisition over time
Carol K. S. To - The University of Hong Kong, SAR China
Number of Chinese-Speakers in USA
 Population 5 years or above: 280,950,438
(US census Bureau, 2007)
 % spoke a language other than English at home: 19%
Spoken a language other than English at home:
100%
•
Spanish or Spanish Creole
62.3%
•
Other Indo-European languages
18.6%
•
Asian and Pacific Island languages
15%
•
Other languages
4.1%
 “Asian and Pacific Island languages include Chinese;
Korean; Japanese; Vietnamese; Hmong; Khmer; Lao;
Thai; Tagalog or Pilipino; the Dravidian languages of
India, such as Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam; and
other languages of Asia and the Pacific, including the
Philippine, Polynesian, and Micronesian languages.”
(US Census Bureau, 2007, p. 2 )
Chinese
 Chinese is a language family consisting of 7 varieties .
 The varieties shared the same writing system
(Standard Chinese) but phonologically we are
mutually unintelligible.
 Mandarin (Putonghua)
 Wu (includes Shanghainese)
 Yue (includes Cantonese & Taishanese)
 Min (includes Hokkien, Taiwanese & Teochew)
 Xiang
 Hakka
 Gan
Hong Kong
88
Official Languages in Hong Kong
1842
1974
1997
2010
(Local) Cantonese (1842 - )
English (1842 - )
Chinese (Modern Standard Chinese,
MSC) (1974- )
“Biliterate & Trilingual Policy”
“Compulsory Chinese medium
of instruction policy”
Putonghua
89
 Hong Kong is a multilingual city.
 HKC has undergone drastic sound changes over the
past 160 years.
 Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) need an up-todate information about acceptable variants of standard
pronunciations of HKC.
Standard Cantonese in 1940
Phonemes
Tones (10)
High-Level (55), H-Fall (52), H-Stop (5),
H-Rise (35), Mid-Level (33), M-Stop (33)
Midlow-Level (22), ML-fall (21), ML-Rise (23),
ML-Stop (22)
Initial
consonants
/p-, ph-, t-, th-, k-, kh-, kw-, kwh-, w-, l-, j-/
/ts- (tʃ-), tsh- (tʃ h-), f-, s- (ʃ -), h-, m-, n-, ŋ-/
Vowels
/i, y, ɛ, œ, a, ɔ, u, ɐ/
Final
consonants
Diphthongs
/-p, -t, -k, -m, -n, -ŋ/
/ai, ɐi, аu, ɐu, ei, ɵy, ɔi, ui, iu, ou/
Hong Kong Cantonese in 21st century
Phonemes
Tones (10)
(9)
High-Level (55), H-Fall (52), H-Stop (5),
H-Rise (35), Mid-Level (33), M-Stop (3)
Midlow-Level (22), ML-fall (21), ML-Rise (23),
ML-Stop (2)
Initial
n- l~ l-/
/
/p-, ph-, t-, th-, k-, kh-, kw-, kwh-, w-, j-, m-, n-,
consonants /ts-, (tʃ-), tsh-, (tʃ h-), f-, s-, (ʃ-) , h-, ŋ- /
/-p, , -t,
-k, -m, -n,
-ŋ /-ŋ/
Final
-n~
-t ~-k,
consonants
Vowels
/i, y, ɛ, œ, a, ɔ, u, ɐ/
Diphthongs /ai, ɐi, аu, ɐu, ei, ɵy, ɔi, ui, iu, ou
ɛu //
Conclusions
 Sound changes in HKC is taking place at a very rapid
rate.
 Cantonese is an oral language. The Chinese writing
system belong to the logographic language which
carries limited cues for pronunciation.
Clinical Implications
 Sound changes relating to syllable-initial and syllabic
consonants can be treated as acceptable variants in
speech sound assessments.
 The four syllable-final sound changes are taking
placing quickly. They can be accepted as variants
during speech sound assessment.
Helen Grech - University of Malta, Malta
THE MALTESE ISLANDS
 Archipelago in Mediterranean Sea
 Malta – main island; Gozo - sister island
 93 km south of Sicily; 288 km north of Tunisia
 1/3 million population; 1 million tourists annually
 Independent language since 1090 AD; Semitic in origin with influences of
Romance languages & English
2 National Languages
Maltese
English
Maltese acquired as L1 by >90% of population
Parental report:
Home language
56.9%
4.7%
(Borg, Mifsud & Sciriha, 1992).
38.6%
(Grech & Dodd, 2008)
Maltese
only
English
only
Maltese +
English
Language structures
 Maltese & English are distinctively different in
phonology, morphology and syntax.
 Maltese has complex phonotactics.
 Maltese is highly inflective (sentence could be composed of 1 lexeme with 3-4
bound morphemes typically signifying gender, plurality and tense).
The National Minimum Curriculum
Bilingualism is the basis of the educational system.
Most children are taught a 3rd language in schools,
normally Italian.
> 80% of children in church or independent schools
and 10% in state schools are taught a 4th language
(Sciriha, 1999).
Language Mixing
Language mixing is typical in the Maltese culture with
English carrying a higher social status.
Children increasingly engage in language mixing,
particularly at an early age,
(Gatt, 2010).
By 3-5 yrs most children are bilingual to varying degrees.
52% of children (2;0-6;0 yrs old) spontaneously used
translation equivalents (Grech & Dodd, 2008).
SLP Challenges
 To distinguish differences due to language learning
context from disorder.
 Until recently, no standardised tests existed for
monolingual Maltese-speaking and bilingual MalteseEnglish speaking children.
 The SLPs depended on their adaptation of
standardised English tests and their intuition.
Maltese-English Speech Assessment (MESA)
Grech, Dodd & Franklin (2011)
The Assessment: MESA
Administered on children in Maltese
and/or English reflecting language
usage
 Articulation – 42 pictures
 Phonology – 42 pictures
 Consistency – 17 pictures x 3
 Oro-motor Skills – DDK, single and sequenced movements
 Phonotactics – word repetition of words (clusters + multi-syllabic words)
MESA
 Leads to differential diagnosis of different types of speech
disorder;
 assesses articulation, oro-motor skills, phonology and
consistency with monolingual and bilingual Maltese
children.
QUICK AND EASY TO ADMINISTER
MESA is based on Dodd & McCormack’s (1995) model of speech processing for differential diagnosis of
phonological disorders.
MESA norms indicate that monolingual and bilingual children have
different profiles of error patterns and rates of speech development.
Bilingualism in Malta is not a negative factor for speech development and
leads to faster acquisition of phonology.
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Maltese-English
Bilingual
Maltese 'Monolingual'
3;0-3;5 3;6-3;11 4;0-4;11 5;0-6;0
Error patterns
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
'Monolingual' in
Malta
Monolingual in
the UK
Bilingual MalteseEnglish
3;0-3;11
4;0-5;5
5;6-
Percentage Consonant Correct
(PCC)
Christina Gildersleeve-Neumann - Portland State University
Brian A. Goldstein – Temple University, PA
Bilingual Children with SSD
• Little information on intervention for speech sound
disorders
• Even less on bilingual children
• Heterogeneous nature of bilinguals
• Each child needs individualized
 Treatment approach
 Plan for language(s) of intervention
107
Bilingual Speech Sound Disorder
• Disorder and cause of disorder is the same as in
monolinguals
 Theoretical framework won’t change
 But need to account for language needs, socio-cultural
framework
• Intervention factors to consider
 Type of speech sound disorder
 Specific needs of child
 Languages of bilingual
 Culture and values of bilingual and family
108
Intervention Decision Steps
1.
Choose Intervention Approach
• For speech sound disorders, treatment can be



Phonetic (articulatory)
Phonemic (phonological)
Combination
 Consider Language(s) of Intervention
• Language or history or relative experience with each
language
• Current communication needs
• Future communication needs
• What other supports they are receiving
109
Intervention Decision Steps
3. Select Language(s) of Intervention
• Monolingual in L1
• Monolingual in L2
• Bilingual

Skills common to both languages treated in both languages
• Crosslinguistic

110
Attention to specific aspects of either Spanish or English
Language of Intervention Factors
• How well does child speak L1 and English?
• Is it possible to conduct treatment in English?
• What language is spoken in home? Who speaks it
and in what situations? How frequently is child
around it?
• Is maintenance of L1 important to the family? The
client?
• Is there support from school, academic setting for
home language?
Goldstein, 2000
111
Exceptions to Treating Both Languages
• Only home language
 Not in school yet
 Child with severe disabilities whose environment
likely L1 environment only
 If L2 is elective(?)
• Only school language
 Communication skills functional in both
 Communication skills for English academics poor
112
Research on Intervention Approaches
• If only treat in one language
 Most likely to see transfer from home to second
language environment (L2) (Perozzi & Sanchez, 1992)
• Treatment for both languages eventually needed
 Some effects of treatment won’t transfer

113
Some sounds need specific instruction if different across
languages (Dodd, Holm, & Wi, 1997)
Intervention Transfer
 Most likely to see transfer when stimuli chosen to
reflect phonological aspects of the two languages
(Yavaş & Goldstein 1998)
 Strategy: Teach cross-linguistic transfer
114
Selecting Intervention Targets
 Approaches
 Shared phonemes


Phonemes existing in both Spanish and English
Overall Effect
 Unshared phonemes

115
Phonemes found in English or Spanish only
Choosing Across-Language Targets
1. Error rates similar in both languages
• Consider importance of syllable or segmental property
in both languages
2. Errors of unequal frequency across languages
• Likely affect intelligibility differently in each language.

Example, Final Consonant Deletion

In Spanish-English, more likely to negatively affect English
3. Target errors occurring in one language only
• Intervention only required in one language
• Typically selected after treated cross-language targets

116
May treat earlier if language treated in is of greater functional
importance to child or effect on one language extreme
Transfer Effects Not Universal
• Treatment of phonetic error (distortion) transferred
• Treatment of phonemic error (syllable error pattern)
did not
(Holm, Dodd, & Ozanne, 1997)
117
Application:
Effectiveness of Bilingual Treatment
• Bilingual treatment for two Spanish-English
sequential bilingual boys with SSDs
• Multiple Probe Across Behavior Design Study
• Two 5-year-old boys


Treatment 2 to 3 times per week for 8 weeks
Home environment



Academic Year preschool environment


English used 50% of the time
Treatment language ratio

118
Parents Spanish-speaking
English used 0-10% of the time
Spanish 2 days, English 1 day
Gildersleeve-Neumann & Goldstein, 2012
Treatment Design
• Treatment Targets
• 3 targets
•
•
2 in English and Spanish
3rd monitored but not treated
• Session Format
 50 minutes long
 5 minute treatment probes
 20 minutes each for the two treatment targets
 5 minutes for metalinguistic application of targets to other language
 40-50 productions per target
 Words and phrases of varying lengths were utilized.
 Combination of phonetic and phonemic strategies
119
Overall Results
CHILD 1
Error Pattern %
Accuracy
/s/
Liquid Dental PCC
cluster cluster Frics
English Pre
0
Post 73
Spanish Pre
8
Post 83
120
CHILD 2
Error Pattern %
PVC
/s/
Liquid
cluster
Dental
Frics
Accuracy
PCC PVC
29
8
62
86
0
0
0
41
74
60
9
81
95
12
27
13
54
88
18
42
74
95
0
0
5
41
89
57
44
85
96
11
12
5
49
91
Summary
 Speech skills of both children improved in both
languages
 Treatment focused more on Spanish than English
 Children’s skills stronger in Spanish
 Parents could aid with practice – words, phrases
 Children could discuss and apply information from
Spanish to English

121
Assistance in generalization through application
Final Summary
• Each bilingual child with SSD unique
 Language(s) & targets of intervention based on individual needs
 Consider changes to decisions over time
• Select goals based on present and future needs of child
• Monitor effects to both languages through probes
•
Alter treatment as necessary
• Bilingual child has same prognosis fro success as
monolingual child
 Given that each child receives best treatment for their needs
• Bilingual intervention can result in improvement in both
languages
 Not yet known if more efficient than monolingual treatment
122
Brian A. Goldstein – Temple University, PA
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