A preliminary evaluation of some language aspects in normal bilingual Egyptian kindergarten children

Abstract

Abstract Background Bilingualism is the phenomenon of speaking and understanding two languages. The increased representation of bilingual populations calls for in-depth studies of bilingualism. The aim of this work is to devise an assessment protocol that could help in evaluating some aspects of Arabic and English languages acquired in typically developing bilingual preschool Egyptian children as a preliminary attempt to comprehend the language profiles of both languages in the studied group. The study was conducted on 80 bilingual Egyptian preschool male and female children exposed to both Arabic and English languages. Their age ranged from 4 to 4 years and 11 months from international English schools with regular attendance and of normal Arabic language development. All were subjected to the designed Bilingual English-Arabic semantic test, and narrative assessment and their parents and teachers filled in the questionnaires addressing the variables affecting both languages’ acquisition. Results Bilingual English-Arabic Semantic and Narration Tests revealed that children under the study had variable development in some aspects in semantic and narration between both languages and according to their age. Conclusions Data gathered from the study can be considered a preliminary nucleus for identification of the bilingual children’s normative data to be able to pick up the cases with language impairment of bilingual children and help in making diagnostic decisions and planning for future intervention.

Keywords

• Bilingualism
• Bilingual English-Arabic Test
• Semantic development
• Narration