Language Disorders in Bilingual Children and Adults » (1st Edition)

This book provides speech-language pathologists, advanced students in communication disorders programs, and clinical language researchers with information needed to formulate and respond to questions related to effective service delivery to bilingual children and adults with suspected or confirmed language disorders. The bilinguals of interest represent varying levels of first- and second-language proficiency across the life span. That is, bilingualism is not determined here by a priori notions of relative proficiency in each language, but rather by the individual's experience or need for two languages, inclusive in this functional definition of bilingualism are typical children and adults who rely on two different languages, to varying degrees, to meet their communicative needs. Similarly, the 4-year-old language-delayed child from a Spanish-speaking family who has just begun attending an English preschool program is considered bilingual, as is the 72-year-old retired professor with global aphasia who spoke both Vietnamese and English prior to the acquired language Impairment. In each case, the relative level of skill or proficiency in each language is an important diagnostic factor, but it does not determine who is or who is not bilingual for the purposes of this text.

About the Author:
Kathryn Kohnert, Ph.D., M.A., CCC, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences at the University of Minnesota

Preface     vii
Acknowledgments     x
Foundational Issues     1
Foundations: Perspectives on Language, Bilingualism, and Language Proficiency     3
Foundations: Culture and Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology     27
Bilingual Children     51
Typically Developing Children Learning One or Two Languages     53
Primary Developmental Language Disorders in Bilingual Children     83
Language Assessment with Developing Bilinguals: Purposes, Principles, and Procedures     111
Intervention with Bilingual Children with Language Disorders     141
Bilingual Adults     169
Language and Cognition in Bilingual Adults     171
Language and Cognition in Bilinguals with Aphasia     193
Assessment in Bilingual Aphasia: Giving Meaning to Measures     219
Intervention in Bilingual Aphasia     245
Index     271