Grammatical Characteristics of Vietnamese and English in Developing Bilingual Children

Optimizing a Vietnamese Sentence Repetition Task Using Item Response Theory

PURPOSE

Sentence repetition can contribute to the identification of developmental language disorder (DLD). However, few studies have attempted to optimize the task for clinical practice. This study uses the item response theory (IRT) to optimize a Vietnamese sentence repetition task for screening and full-assessment purposes and evaluate the diagnostic utility of the new item sets.

METHOD

We expanded the original task from 28 to 40 items to maximize the chances of having robust final item sets. The 40 items were administered to 196 children in Vietnam, ages 4-6 years. Participants met criteria for DLD (n = 28) or typical development (n = 122), while a subset did not meet criteria for either classification (i.e., Risk, n = 46). Using IRT, we compared different scoring systems and selected item sets with robust parameters and adequate fit to serve two clinical purposes, assessment and screening. We calculated diagnostic accuracy of these item sets using discriminant function analysis and compared results to raw score cut-points.

RESULTS

The optimal item set for full assessment included 28 items (15 original items) and showed strong diagnostic accuracy, as did a 14-item subset (seven original items) designed for screening. The item set for full assessment also provided a quick characterization of children's grammatical performance. The strongest diagnostic values were derived from discriminant function analysis.

CONCLUSIONS

This study optimized two sentence repetition tasks for monolingual Vietnamese children for use in a full assessment or screening. Implications are discussed on how to utilize tasks in clinical practice. Future studies need to evaluate sentence repetition in older children and bilingual populations.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28570475.

Fill in the Blank: English Morphosyntax Production in Matched Bilingual Groups

PURPOSE

This study compared English grammatical performance of bilingual school-age children who spoke either Spanish or Vietnamese at home, focusing on their first-language influence on the acquisition of 13 English grammatical forms.

METHOD

Scores from 30 children on a cloze task were analyzed for accuracy, developmental patterns, and error types. Pairwise matching was used to match individual Vietnamese and Spanish bilinguals on age and English experience. Caregivers rated language ability and daily use of the home language and English.

RESULTS

Higher grammatical accuracy across groups was associated with older age and higher caregiver ratings of children's language ability. Groups showed similar patterns on some grammatical forms (e.g., higher accuracy on plurals than irregular past), consistent with previously reported developmental patterns of monolingual English-speaking children. Differences in other patterns were related to first-language influence. For example, phonological constraints of Vietnamese (e.g., no word-final /s/), led to lower accuracy in English forms requiring such sounds.

CONCLUSIONS

English grammatical performance in bilinguals can reflect both general developmental patterns and first-language influence. As bilingual children may rely on linguistic cues specific to their first language, classroom instruction can be adjusted to be more culturally and linguistically responsive.

Evaluating the feasibility and utility of machine translation for patient education materials written in plain language to increase accessibility for populations with limited english proficiency

BACKGROUND

Populations with limited English proficiency (LEP) face comprehension barriers with health information as navigating healthcare systems involves encountering health information that is written at high reading grade levels, utilizes complex medical jargon, and unfamiliar or abstract terms and concepts. Despite the serious consequences of language discordance there is limited funding available for the translation of patient education material in the public healthcare setting. In response to the imperative need to provide equal access to patient education materials to all patients, regardless of English language proficiency, some have raised the feasibility of leveraging machine translation software. This study investigates the feasibility and utility of using machine translation (Google Translate) to translate patient education materials written in plain language.

METHODS

A sample of 5 patient education pamphlets were selected for inclusion based on their high usage and importance. These were assessed for their readability and translated by both human translators and using Google Translate into Spanish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, and Vietnamese. Medical translators conducted blinded appraisal of both sets of translations on four domains.

RESULTS

Spanish and Vietnamese language pamphlets achieved the highest overall scores. There were significant differences between human and machine translation in favour of the former for all of the languages, although machine translation scored above 3/5 in 90 % of the domains tested. There was no correlation between readability scores and translation scores.

DISCUSSION

Google Translate performs well in multiple translation domains despite its continued inferiority relative to professional human translation. The high scoring of machine translated pamphlets, particularly in the most crucial domain of severity however, points to its potential adoption in a limited capacity in healthcare settings, with processes in place, like pre-screening for high-risk content that may pose a threat to patient well-being.

A Narrative Approach to Synthesizing Research on Vietnamese Bilingual and Monolingual Children

PURPOSE

This review article offers a narrativized synthesis of my research over the past 15+ years with Vietnamese-speaking children based on data collected from individual bilingual and monolingual children in preschool and elementary schools.

METHOD

I begin with a positionality narrative to describe who I am in relation to the research conducted. I provide an overview of the research program including tool building and how my research with bilinguals in the United States led me to international collaborations in Vietnam.

RESULTS

I present main findings from this body of work in three areas: typical bilingual development, reading performance in Vietnam, and characteristics of developmental language disorder in the Vietnamese language. Implications within each area are discussed in terms of clinical application and future research directions. Practitioners and researchers alike can freely access the Vietnamese assessment tools created and validated to date from our website, https://vietslp.sdsu.edu/.

CONCLUSIONS

This research overview aims to offer clinicians and researchers the sociocultural context for understanding the relevance of this body of research. It also serves as an invitation for new generations of scholars, particularly scholars of color, to see their own unique positionings and perspectives as valuable and necessary for scientific innovation and progress.

PRESENTATION VIDEO

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23929491.

Remote First-Language Assessment: Feasibility Study With Vietnamese Bilingual Children and Their Caregivers

PURPOSE

There is a shortage of bilingual speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the United States. For Vietnamese, less than 1% of SLPs speak the language compared with a Vietnamese American population of > 2.1 million. This study examines the feasibility and social validity of remote child language assessment with the help of a caregiver to address the need for first language assessments among Vietnamese-speaking children.

METHOD

Twenty-one dyads of caregivers and typically developing children (aged 3-6 years) completed two assessment sessions in their first language, Vietnamese, using Zoom videoconferencing. Sessions were counterbalanced between two conditions in which either the clinician or the caregiver was the task administrator. Children's language samples were elicited using narrative tasks. Social validity was also assessed through caregiver and child questionnaires at the end of each session.

RESULTS

There were no significant differences between conditions on language sample measures nor the measures of social validity. Both caregivers and their children felt positively about the sessions. The caregivers' feelings were related to their perception of children's feelings about the sessions. Children's feelings were related to their Vietnamese language proficiency, caregiver-reported language ability, and whether they were born outside of the United States.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings build the evidence base for telepractice as an effective and socially valid service delivery model for bilingual children in the United States. This study supports the potential for caregivers as task administrators in a telepractice setting, making assessment in a child's first language more feasible and accessible. Future investigation is needed to extend results to bilingual populations with disorders.

Understanding (un)grammaticality in context: Evidence from young Spanish-English bilinguals over time

PURPOSE

Percent grammatical utterances (PGU) provides clinicians and researchers with meaningful information on young children's grammatical abilities (Eisenberg & Guo, 2016). However, work is still needed to place PGU within the context of conventional language sample measures and understand how PGU reflects grammatical development in bilingual populations. The current study focuses on Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers to examine: 1) change in Spanish and English PGU over one year of preschool English instruction, 2) associations between PGU and other language sample measures within each language and across time, and 3) the types and frequency of error patterns in each language.

METHOD

Play-based language samples were elicited in English and Spanish from bilingual children (n = 19) at the beginning and end of an instructional preschool year in English. PGU was derived from each sample along with other language sample measures (e.g., mean length of utterance). We examined change in PGU from Time 1 to Time 2, and correlations between Time 1 PGU and Time 2 PGU for each language. Specific grammatical errors were described in terms of their frequency in each language and stability across time.

RESULTS

Average English PGU increased from Time 1 to Time 2, and correlated with other language sample measures. Conversely, average Spanish PGU did not increase from Time 1 to Time 2, nor did PGU correlate with any other Spanish measure. Error patterns in each language reflected grammatical differences across English and Spanish.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results revealed distinct developmental patterns in bilingual children's first and second languages. Associations between time points and measures in English contrasted with disassociations in Spanish. Error patterns revealed more detailed information as to how bilingual children begin to acquire grammatical structures in each of their languages. We provide a case example to illustrate how grammaticality and error patterns can be used to characterize children's language abilities. We conclude with clinical implications of grammaticality in Spanish-English bilingual children.