Executive functions in language-minority children with specific language impairment

This study explored executive function skills and language abilities in bilingual immigrant children with specific language impairment (SLI) from low income families in Luxembourg. Data from 81 eight-year-olds from three different groups were analyzed: (1) 15 Portuguese-Luxembourgish children with SLI living in Luxembourg (Bi-SLI); (2) 33 typically developing Portuguese-Luxembourgish bilinguals from Luxembourg (Bi-TD); (3) 33 typically developing monolinguals from Portugal (Mo-TD). Groups were matched on first language, chronological age, and socioeconomic status, and did not differ in nonverbal intelligence. All children came from low income families and completed a range of measures tapping verbal and visuospatial working memory, selective attention, interference suppression and different domains of language (syntax and expressive and receptive vocabulary). Results indicate that despite large differences in their language scores (Bi-SLI < Bi-TD < Mo-TD), the groups exhibited comparable performance on the measures of visuospatial working memory, focused attention, and inhibitory suppression. Group differences emerged on the verbal working memory measures with Bi-SLI children performing significantly less well than the bilingual and monolingual typically developing groups that manifested comparable performance. The data suggests that: (a) children with SLI present verbal working memory limitations accompanied by preserved visuospatial executive functioning; (b) the measure that best discriminated the Bi-SLI group from their typically developing peers was the verbal working memory task digit recall. Practical implication for diagnosing SLI in bilingual children from disadvantaged social contexts will be discussed.