Vocabulary use in seven- to nine-year-old bilingual children with and without language impairment

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of vocabulary use of seven- to nine-year-old bilingual children with and without language impairment. 74 participants (37 typically developing and 37 language impaired) ranging from age 7;0 to 9;11 years were matched based on age, language dominance and when they first began speaking English. The Test of Narrative Language (TNL) was administered to the participants in English and Spanish. The three oral narratives of the English and Spanish TNL were transcribed and scored. A prototypical word list was derived from 10 high scoring students from the normative data set. Word lists from both the TD and LI participants in English and Spanish were compared to the prototypical word list. Results indicated that the participants produced more prototypical words when telling stories in English than in Spanish. TD participants also produced more prototypical words than LI participants overall. The results have implications for both assessment and intervention and add to our knowledge of word selection in bilingual children with and without LI.