Retelling abilities of Cypriot-Greek children with and without developmental language disorder: implications for clinical practice

Abstract

Background: Most of the previous research has focused on bilingual children and little is known about how bilectalism (Rowe and Grohmann, 2013), affects children’s language skills, even though bilectalism is prominent worldwide, and particularly so in Europe (see, e.g., Auer, 2005). Previous research has shown that bilectal children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties producing oral narratives (Theodorou & Grohmann 2010, Theodorou, 2012) compared to age-matched peers with typical language development (TLD). Narrative skills are often found to be limited for children with DLD (Wetherell et al. 2007). On the micro-strucutre level of micro-structure, studies have shown that children with DLD perform weak on various aspects, including morphosyntax (Reilly et al. 2004), lexical richness (diversity) and use of complex syntactic strucutres. Children with DLD are also outperformed by their TLD peers when their narratives are analyzed on the macro-level (e.g., Reilly et al. 2004). This has also been found within a bilingual context (e.g., Paradis et al. 2013). Many studies indicate that story telling is difficult for children with DLD, but differences in measures of macro-structure between children with and without DLD have not always been found. Yet, few studies have focused on narrative skills in bilectal context of Cyprus (Theodorou, 2010; Theodorou et al., 2016). Previous research has focused on the comparison between children with developmental language disorder and typically developing children proving the value of retelling as a language-testing tool (Theodorou et al., 2016). Therefore, there is limited information documenting growth patterns in retelling narrative development of typically developing children growing up as bilectals at the microstructure level. Aim(s): The current study aimed at investigating the language abilities of Cypriot-Greek (CG) children aged between 5 to 9 years old compared with their peers with DLD in Cyprus. It also addressed which macrostructure components and microstructure features best differentiate CG speaking children with and without DLD. In addition, the present study aims to provide evidence of gender differences' effects on children’s narrative performance. Methods: 120 Cypriot-Greek children aged 5 to 9 years participated in this study. The children were divided into four groups: two groups each of children with DLD and age-matched typically developing (TLD) children. Assessment included measures of productive and expressive language skills and narrative abilities in Bus Story Test. Results: The results showed differences between TLD children and children with DLD in microstructure, while children with DLD may be found to attain similar levels of performance with TLD children in macrostructure. Indeed, previous research on bilingual children with and without DLD has shown similar performance on macrostructure (SimonCereijido & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2009). It is suggested that the retelling coding scheme could permit differential diagnosis of DLD among bilectal children within the scope of narrative assessment. As Paradis (2010) has argued, there are some structures where performance 2 differences point to a temporary lack of opportunity for mastery, whereas other structures will be markers of underlying difficulties. Conclusion: The results of the current study, taken on their own, provide preliminary evidence for the narrative skills of TD and DLD bilectal children whose native language is Cypriot Greek. This study confirms previous research findings regarding the narrative ability of children regarding the use of productivity and length of utterances and initial evidence of growth patterns that can be exploited by clinicians and other professionals. Although more research is needed, the findings indicate that the Renfrew Bus Story Test and narrative assessment can provide clinicians with sufficient information regarding children’s language skills. Findings of the current study support that narratives may be useful for assessing and monitoring language development within language intervention programs.