Discriminant Analysis of Assessment Tools in Identifying Language Impairment in Korean-English Bilingual Children

Abstract

Objectives: This purpose of this study was to identify measurement tasks for discriminating bilingual children who have language impairment from bilingual children who have a normal language ability. Methods: Forty Korean-English bilingual children who were between 5 to 7 years old participated in the study. Tasks used in the study were standardized vocabulary tests, a parental report, learning ability tasks, and memory ability tasks. The study conducted one way and Two-way ANOVAs to examine the group difference on language ability, learning ability, and memory ability and used partial correlations to analyze the data. Results: The results of the study were first; bilingual children with language impairment were statistically lower on all language tests, learning and memory tasks compared to typically developing children. Secondly; the result of phased discrimination analysis to identify an effective measurement task, which discriminates between language impairment and language development of bilingual children, orderly illustrated K-ALDeQ, parental report and the task of memory ability. The result which analyzed the groups of bilingual children by using discriminating equation illustrated 89.5% sensitivity and 100% specificity (y=-104.94+(0.31*K-ALDeQ)+(0.79*Parental report)+(0.23*NWR_E)+(-0.18*NWR_ K). Conclusion: Results indicated that it is important to assess both children's mother tongue and the second language, learning and memory ability, and reports of parents in order to measure the language ability of bilingual children. The study results can be used for identifying language impairment in bilingual children. © 2020 UKSS and NASS