Bilingual Language Development & Disorders in Spanish-English Speakers

Both SLPs and researchers must understand speech and language developments in children - and SLPs also need reliable assessment and intervention approaches for serving bilingual children with language disorders. This comprehensive text is one of the few to offer readers in-depth theoretical and practical information on these timely topics. Focusing on children from 3 to 12 years of age, this urgently needed resource brings together more than a dozen top researchers to present developmental data, best assessment practices, and appropriate intervention approaches in the following areas: language processing skills; lexical development; morpho-syntactic development; first language loss; grammatical impairments; semantic development; phonological development and disorders; narrative development and disorders; fluency; A concluding chapter provides readers with a framework for appropriate language intervention for bilingual speakers. The chapter outlines the major purposes of intervention for bilingual children with speech and language disorders, explores the debate over which language SLPs should use with bilingual children, and examines ways to promote gains in both languages. With this research-based text, SLPs will understand the complexity of language development in bilingual children and learn appropriate assessment and intervention approaches.