Nonword Repetition and Sentence Imitation as Clinical Markers for Primary Language Impairment in bilingual French-English- and English-French-speaking children in Northern Ontario

Abstract

Studies indicate that nonword repetition and sentence imitation are useful tools when assessing bilingual children. Bilingual children with primary language impairment (PLI) typically score lower on these two tasks than their typically developing counterparts. Studies show that bilingual children are not disadvantaged during nonword repetition if they have limited language exposure. However, since sentence imitation tasks are constructed with words from the target language, it is expected that it would be more influenced by previous language exposure. The goal of this article will be to review the influence of bilingual exposure on both tasks. This review provides the theoretical background for future studies that will compare the accuracy of both tasks when identifying PLI in bilingual children.

Keywords

• nonword repetition
• sentence imitation
• bilingualism
• clinical marker
• language impairment
• school-aged children
• minority language