Identification of Specific Language Impairment in Multilingual Contexts: Preliminary Validation of a Short Parental Bilingual Questionnaire in Lebanon

Abstract

Assessing children with Specific language Impairment (SLI) in multilingual contexts is challenging for speech language therapists given that language patterns in bilinguals and in children with SLI are often reported to be remarkably similar and that screening language tests are not standardized on bilingual populations. The present study aims to validate the use of a parental questionnaire focusing on early language development, the languages spoken by the child, the use of languages in his/her environment, and information on linguistic difficulties within the family, as a complement to language assessment in multilingual contexts. Thirty-three Lebanese/French bilingual children (12 with SLI and 21 with typical development) and their parents participated in this study in Lebanon. The parents were interviewed via the questionnaire while the children were administered standardized language tests in each language. Data analysis showed that the parents’ answers to the questionnaire were coherent throughout and that some variables of the questionnaire strongly discriminated between the two groups of children, in particular the age of the first words and first sentences. Moreover, although significant correlations were found with language test scores, the answers to the questionnaire allowed us to refine the interpretation of the performance on the standardized tests, thus demonstrating the value of the parental questionnaire as a complementary tool to clinical evaluation.