Assessing Multilingual Children: Disentangling Bilingualism from Language Impairment

Second language learners often produce language forms resembling those of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). At present, professionals working in language assessment and education have only limited diagnostic instruments to distinguish language impaired migrant children from those who will eventually catch up with their monolingual peers. This book presents a comprehensive set of tools for assessing the linguistic abilities of bilingual children. It aims to disentangle effects of bilingualism from those of SLI, making use of both models of bilingualism and models of language impairment. The book’s methods-oriented focus will make it an essential handbook for practitioners who look for measures which could be adapted to a variety of languages in diverse communities, as well as academic researchers.

Sharon Armon-Lotem is Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature and Linguistics and a member of The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar Ilan University, Israel.

John H.A.L. de Jong is Professor Emeritus of Language Testing at VU University Amsterdam and has run a consultancy business, Language Testing Services, since 2000. He taught French for seven years before starting his career in language testing in 1977 at CITO. With Language Testing Services, he has provided consultancy in language testing to national ministries of education, the World Bank, the OECD, the Council of Europe and the European Union. During his years at Pearson (2006–2016) he developed the Pearson Test of English Academic and the Global Scale of English and led Frameworks development for PISA 2015, 2018 and PISA for Development.

Natalia Meir is currently working on her PhD in the Department of English Literature and Linguistics at Bar-Ilan University, Israel.