Main description:

Language Disorders in Bilingual Children and Adults, Third Edition, provides speech-language pathologists, advanced students in communication disorders programs, and clinical language researchers with information needed to formulate and respond to questions related to effective service delivery to bilingual children and adults with suspected or confirmed language disorders. The bilinguals of interest represent varying levels of first and second language proficiency across the lifespan. That is, bilingualism is not determined here by proficiency in each language, but rather by the individual's experience or need for two languages.

In separate chapters, the book synthesizes the literature on bilingual children and adults with typical and atypical language skills. These chapters give the reader a deep understanding of the multiple factors that affect language development and disorders in those who rely on two languages for meaningful interactions. Chapters on assessment and intervention issues and methods are then presented for each population.

For children, the text focuses on developmental language disorder but also discusses secondary language disorders (such as autism spectrum disorder) in bilingual populations. For adults, the focus is on aphasia, with additional discussion of dementia, traumatic brain injury, and right hemisphere disorder. Although child and adult, typical and atypical populations are presented separately, all are considered within a unifying Dynamic Interactive Processing perspective and within a new Means-Opportunities-Motives framework for understanding language disorders in bilinguals. This broad theoretical framework emphasizes interactions between social, cognitive and communicative systems to form the basis for very practical implications related to assessment and intervention.

This third edition has been completely updated to reflect the current research on bilingual populations and the best practices for working with them. Studies at the intersection of bilingualism and language disorders have expanded to include additional disorders and new language combinations. The authors synthesize the current literature and translate it for clinical use.

Contents:

Section I: Foundational Issues
Chapter 1 Perspectives on Language, Bilingualism, and Language Proficiency
Chapter 2 Culture and Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology
Chapter 3 Principles for Clinical Actions: EBP and Common Factors

Section II: Bilingual Children
Chapter 4 Typically Developing Children Learning One or Two Languages
Chapter 5 Primary Language Impairment in Bilingual Children
Chapter 6 Language Assessment with Developing Bilinguals: Purposes, Principles and Procedures
Chapter 7 Intervention with Bilingual Children with Language Impairment

Section III: Bilingual Adults
Chapter 8 Language and Cognition in Bilingual Adults
Chapter 9 Bilinguals with Aphasia and Other Acquired Language and Cognitive-Communication Disorders
Chapter 10 Assessment with Bilingual Adults: Giving Meaning to Measures
Chapter 11 Intervention for Bilingual Adults with Aphasia and Other Language and Cognitive-Communication Disorders

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