This study examined the frequency of code-switching by Spanish–English-speaking children as a functionof language proficiency in each language and diagnosis(developmental language disorder [DLD] or typical languagedevelopment [TLD]).
Main Idea of the article.
It is particularly challengingto distinguish between different and impaired communicationskills in developing bilinguals, especially when the secondlanguage has not yet developed enough and the first is be-ing gradually lost versus when both languages are highlyvalued and supported
When one language is being spoken more than the other people tend to lose connection to their first language.
However, it has beenwell documented that bilingual children with DLD and theirpeers with TLD will switch between the two languages informal and informal language
code switching or "broken" English
Purpose: This study examined the frequency of code-switching by Spanish–English-speaking children as a functionof language proficiency in each language and diagnosis(developmental language disorder [DLD] or typical languagedevelopment [TLD]).Method: Sixty-two Spanish–English-speaking children, 5–7 years of age, participated in this study (24 with DLD and38 with TLD). Language samples were used to determine thelevel of language proficiency in each language as a continuumof performance. Correlational analyses were conducted toevaluate the relationship between Spanish and Englishlanguage proficiency and the frequency of code-switchingconsidering the total number of code-switched words,intrasentential code-switching (i.e., number of sentences/C-units with code-switched parts), and intersentential code-switching (i.e., code-switched sentences/C-units). Negativebinomial and zero-inflated Poisson regressions wereconducted to evaluate whether the frequency of code-switched words, code-switched parts, and code-switchedsentences is different across children with DLD and their peerswith TLD, controlling for Spanish and English proficiency.Results: When Spanish was the target language, lowerproficiency in Spanish was associated with higher frequencyof code-switches to English for the group with DLD, butnot for their peers with TLD who code-switched to Englishregardless of their Spanish and English proficiency. Therewere no statistically significant effects of diagnosis on thefrequency of code-switches.Conclusion: Results indicate that code-switching occurssimilarly across children with DLD and their peers with TLD;therefore, the frequency and type of code-switches shouldnot be used as an indicator of DLD.
The purpose of this research and the results from the research.