Browsing by Author "Seppälä, Metti"

Aims. Bilingual language development can have positive or negative effects on phonological development. Children with specific language impairment can have difficulties in phonological skills. This study aimed to compare the paradigmatic and phonotactic skills of sequential bilingual children with SLI to the skills of monolingual children with SLI in the Finnish language. The connection between paradigmatic and phonotactic skills was studied. The effect of bilingual language impaired children's age, sex and duration of Finnish acquisition and the effect of monolingual language impaired children's age and sex on their phonotactic skills was researched. Methods. The participants were sequentially bilingual language impaired children (N = 46) aged 3;5– 5;10 and monolingual language impaired children (N = 46) aged 3;5–5;9. The participants had been recruited to Helsinki Longitudinal SLI study in 2013–2015. The evaluation method was Finnish Test of Phonology (Fonologiatesti). The paradigmatic and phonotactic skills of the two groups were compared using statistical methods. The connection between paradigmatic and phonotactic skills was studied in both groups. A linear regression model was conducted for each group. In both models the dependent variable was phonotactic skills. In the bilingual language impaired group the explanatory variables were age, sex and duration of Finnish acquisition. In the monolingual language impaired group the explanatory variables were age and sex. Results and conclusions. Bilingual children with SLI had better paradigmatic and phonotactic skills compared to monolingual children with SLI. Paradigmatic and phonotactic skills correlated strongly in both groups. The correlations in the monolingual language impaired group were statistically more significant. Age was a statistically significant explanatory variable for phonotactic skills in both groups. The duration of language acquisition of bilingual children with SLI was not a statistically significant explanatory variable for phonotactic skills. Bilingual children with SLI may have more articulate speech than monolingual children with SLI. Bilingualism may function as a protective factor in phonological difficulties associated with SLI.