The role of vocabulary knowledge for tongue twister repetition in bilingual children with and without language impairment

This study evaluates the relationship between semantic and phonological representations via the comparison of vocabulary knowledge and tongue twister performance in 34 bilingual Spanish-English children with and without language impairment (LI). In Spanish and English, scores and error analyses for eight four-word tongue twisters were compared to their vocabulary scores on the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT). Results indicated the typically developing (TD) group outperformed the group with LI in all areas. Positive significant correlations occurred between vocabulary knowledge and tongue twister performance in both languages and negative significant correlations between vocabulary knowledge and specific tongue twister error types demonstrated cross-language and cross-group discrepancies. These results imply that semantic knowledge and language experience and exposure influence bilingual children's performance on tongue twisters repetition tasks.