Exploring the Relationship between Native Language Skills and Foreign Language Learning in Children with Developmental Language Disorders

ABSTRACT

Learning English as a foreign language (FL) is mandatory for children with developmental language disorders (DLD) in elementary education in the Netherlands. Because of their difficulties in acquiring their first language, learning an FL at school can be challenging. To date, almost no literature on children with DLD and FL learning exists. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between language proficiency in Dutch of monolingual and multilingual children with DLD and learning English as an FL.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in four special education schools for children with DLD. Thirty-five sixth graders (mean age 12;3 years) participated in this study. Twenty-two children were monolingual, and 13 children were multilingual. Correlation analyses between scores on standardised Dutch language tests and a standardised test for English proficiency were performed. Because the English proficiency test partly relies on reading skills, scores on a Dutch word decoding test were included in the analyses. Results show that the children with DLD performed poorly on the FL proficiency test when compared to typically developing children. Significant positive relationships were found between Dutch and English language skills of children with DLD, with no significant differences in FL proficiency between the monolingual and multilingual groups. Possibly, children with DLD cannot achieve acceptable proficiency levels of English as an FL, because of poor word decoding skills and impaired morphosyntactic skills in Dutch. Future research should focus on oral English proficiency of the children, because the English proficiency test only uses written and auditory presented tasks.

KEYWORDS:

• Correlation analysis
• foreign language proficiency
• developmental language disorders
• specific language impairment

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank staff, teachers and speech language therapists of the four Royal Dutch Auris schools, Bertha Muller School, Hildernisseschool, de Taalkring and de Weerklank, for their help in the data collection. They also express their gratitude to the children and parents who participated in this study.

Statement of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

¹ Sixth grade in the Netherlands is the highest grade of elementary school. This group was chosen because at that age, the children have had some classroom experience in learning an FL.