Language Disorders in Multilingual and Multicultural Populations

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Abstract

We review the characteristics of developmental language disorders (primary language impairment, reading disorders, autism, Down syndrome) and acquired language disorders (aphasia, dementia, traumatic brain injury) among multilingual and multicultural individuals. We highlight the unique assessment and treatment considerations pertinent to this population, including, for example, concerns of language choice and availability of measures and of normative data in multiple languages. A summary of relevant, recent research studies is provided for each of the language disorders selected.

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Most cited references 135

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Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task.

Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I M Craik, Raymond W. Klein … (2004)

Previous work has shown that bilingualism is associated with more effective controlled processing in children; the assumption is that the constant management of 2 competing languages enhances executive functions (E. Bialystok, 2001). The present research attempted to determine whether this bilingual advantage persists for adults and whether bilingualism attenuates the negative effects of aging on cognitive control in older adults. Three studies are reported that compared the performance of monolingual and bilingual middle-aged and older adults on the Simon task. Bilingualism was associated with smaller Simon effect costs for both age groups; bilingual participants also responded more rapidly to conditions that placed greater demands on working memory. In all cases the bilingual advantage was greater for older participants. It appears, therefore, that controlled processing is carried out more effectively by bilinguals and that bilingualism helps to offset age-related losses in certain executive processes. ((c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

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A definition of dyslexia

G. Reid Lyon, Sally Shaywitz, Bennett A Shaywitz (2003)

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Are there bilingual advantages on nonlinguistic interference tasks? Implications for the plasticity of executive control processes.

Matthew Hilchey, Raymond M. Klein (2011)

It has been proposed that the unique need for early bilinguals to manage multiple languages while their executive control mechanisms are developing might result in long-term cognitive advantages on inhibitory control processes that generalize beyond the language domain. We review the empirical data from the literature on nonlinguistic interference tasks to assess the validity of this proposed bilingual inhibitory control advantage. Our review of these findings reveals that the bilingual advantage on conflict resolution, which by hypothesis is mediated by inhibitory control, is sporadic at best, and in some cases conspicuously absent. A robust finding from this review is that bilinguals typically outperform monolinguals on both compatible and incompatible trials, often by similar magnitudes. Together, these findings suggest that bilinguals do enjoy a more widespread cognitive advantage (a bilingual executive processing advantage) that is likely observable on a variety of cognitive assessment tools but that, somewhat ironically, is most often not apparent on traditional assays of nonlinguistic inhibitory control processes.

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Author and article information

Journal

Title: Annual Review of Applied Linguistics

Abbreviated Title: Ann Rev Appl Linguist

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)

ISSN (Print): 0267-1905

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-6356

Publication date Created: March 2013

Publication date (Electronic): November 29 2013

Publication date (Print): March 2013

Volume: 33

Pages: 128-161

Article

DOI: 10.1017/S026719051300010X

PubMed ID: 26257455

SO-VID: 317fa25f-3665-4587-84ab-3005d50b9b62

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https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

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