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Language learning involves linguistic and societal factors that interact to facilitate or hinder second language learning. Different contextual factors provide an opportunity to examine and understand the similarities and differences that occur among bilingual children who learn the same first (L1) and second language (L2) in different countries and contexts. This paper explored the role of context, learners' profiles and linguistic differences of Urdu–English bilinguals in Canada and Pakistan. Within- and cross-linguistic comparisons were conducted for 76 Urdu–English speakers from Pakistan and 50 participants from Canada. Children, ages 8–10 years, were tested on language and literacy measures in both languages. Group comparisons of performance on language measures across languages and countries confirmed that relative strengths were based on the societal languages of each country (Urdu in Pakistan and English in Canada). Despite some similarities in relations among skills within language, differences in the language learning context provided interesting findings regarding the role of L1 skills for acquiring L2 reading skills. These findings challenge the theories developed using data from L2 learners, where learners acquire the societal language in immersion contexts, such as in North America or Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee children tend to show low emotional well-being and weak executive functions that may have consequences on language and therefore complicate a potential diagnosis of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) in this population. We assessed the performance of 140 children living in Switzerland aged 5 to 8 (20 monolinguals, 86 non-refugee bilinguals, 34 refugee bilinguals) on LITMUS language tasks (nonword repetition, sentence repetition, parental questionnaire), standardized language tasks, memory and executive function tasks. Parents also filled in the Child Behavior Checklist providing a measure of their child's emotional well-being. Results indicate that refugee children are more emotionally vulnerable and show weaker performance in memory and executive functions tasks compared to non-refugee children, in line with the existing literature. Moreover, when compared to non-refugee bilingual children with similar length of exposure to French, refugee children are disadvantaged on all language tasks. Whereas emotional well-being does not predict language performance, memory and executive functions show up as predictors of both LITMUS and standardized language tasks, although in an unsystematic way. It is concluded that refugee children are at risk across the board and that a better understanding of the complex interplay between well-being, executive functions, memory and language is needed in order to build more appropriate diagnostic tools for these children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arabic-speaking community in Sweden is large and diverse, yet linguistic reference data are lacking for Arabic-Swedish-speaking children. This study presents reference data from 99 TD children aged 4;0–7;11 on receptive and expressive vocabulary in the minority and the majority language, as well as for three types of non-word repetition (NWR) tasks. Vocabulary scores were investigated in relation to age, language exposure, and socio-economic status (SES). NWR performance was explored in relation to age, type of task, item properties, language exposure, and vocabulary. Eleven children with DLD were compared to the TD group. Age and language exposure were important predictors of vocabulary scores in both languages, but SES did not affect vocabulary scores in any language. Age and vocabulary size had a positive effect on NWR accuracy, whilst increasing item length and presence of clusters had an adverse effect. There was substantial overlap between the TD and DLD children for both vocabulary and NWR performance. Diagnostic accuracy was at best suggestive for NWR; no task or type of item was better at separating the two groups. Reports from parents and teachers on developmental history, language exposure, and functional language skills emerged as important factors for correctly identifying DLD in bilinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilingualism is associated with enhanced switching skills, while a developmental language disorder (DLD) may negatively impact switching ability. However, both studies with bilinguals as well as studies including children with DLD have revealed mixed results. Moreover, the interaction of bilingualism and DLD has not been addressed and the origin of the stronger or weaker switching performance is unknown. The current study aimed to fill these gaps. Monolingual and bilingual children with and without DLD (n = 32 in each of the four groups) completed a nonverbal color/shape switching task when they were 7 to 8 years old, and a Continuous Performance Task two years earlier. The latter tapped into their response inhibition and sustained attention skills, which may underlie switching ability. No differences between monolinguals and bilinguals were found on the switching task. Children with DLD had higher mixing costs than peers without DLD, which was driven by differences in sustained attention skills. These results add to the body of research indicating that the cognitive advantages of bilingualism are unstable. Additionally, the results substantiate the hypothesis that attention processes are foundational for complex cognitive skills, such as switching, and suggest cascading effects for children with weaker attention skills, such as children with DLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational and (psycho-)linguistic research on L1 and L2 acquisition in bilingual children sketches them as a group of language learners varying in many aspects. However, most studies to date have based evaluations of language proficiency or new assessment tools on data from heritage children, while studies on the appropriateness of assessment tools for school-age refugee children remain a notable exception. This study focuses on the standardized assessment tool BUEGA for primary school children, which is, among others, a widespread tool for the assessment of pedagogical support or special needs (SN) in Germany. We compare the performance of 12 typically developing monolinguals (MoTD: 7;3–12;1), 14 heritage-bilinguals (BiTD: 7;1–13;4, L1 Turkish and Arabic), 12 refugee- students (BiTD: 8;7–13;1, L1 Arabic), and 7 children with developmental language disorders (DLD: 7;7–13;9) on the subtests of grammar, word-reading, and spelling. Overall results show that refugee-BiTDs perform in the (monolingual) pathology range. No significant differences emerged between students with DLD and typically developing (TD) refugee students. Considering the assessment of school-related language performance, bilingual refugees are at risk of misdiagnosis, along with the well-known effects of educational disadvantage. This particularly applies to children with low socioeconomic status (SES). Looking beyond oral language competencies and using test combinations can help exclude language disorders in school-age children with limited L2 proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]