1398 JSLHR

JSLHR,, Volume
Volume 41,
41, 1398–1411,
1398–1411, December
December 1998
1998

Identifiers of Predominantly
Spanish-Speaking Children With
Language Impairment

María Adelaida Restrepo

The University of Georgia The purpose of this study was to identify a set of measures that would discrimi-
Athens nate 31 predominantly Spanish-speaking children with normal language (NL
children) from 31 children with language impairment (LI children). The LI
children were identified as such by experienced, bilingual (Spanish/English),
ASHA-certified, speech-language pathologists who were currently seeing the
children in their caseloads. Children ranged in age from 5 to 7 years and were
matched for age, gender, and school. Additionally, nonverbal cognitive
measures assured that they did not differ significantly intellectually. Measures of
vocabulary, novel bound-morpheme learning skills, and language form were
randomly administered to all children. Further, parents responded to questions
about their perceptions of their children’s speech and language skills and family
history of speech and language problems. A stepwise discriminant analysis
indicated that 4 measures discriminated the groups of children with a sensitivity
of 91.3% and a specificity of 100% (p < .0001): parental report of the child’s
speech and language skills, number of errors per T-unit, mean length per T-unit,
and family history of speech and language problems. A second discriminant
analysis indicated that the sensitivity and specificity could be maintained when
only the first 2 measures were included. Confirmatory discriminant analyses of
the 2- and 4-measure models indicated that the discriminant accuracy was
stable on an independent sample.
KEY WORDS: SLI, Spanish, identification, language, measures

C
hildren with specific language impairment (SLI; hereafter LI)
are described as having a “significant language deficit in the face
of normal nonverbal intelligence, adequate auditory acuity, and
the absence of gross neurological disabilities” (Leonard, Sabbadini,
Leonard, & Volterra, 1987, p. 234). The most consistent finding of inves-
tigations of LI children is that these children have a disproportionate
“language-form” deficit characterized by morphosyntactic problems such
as bound-morpheme omissions and substitutions, tense agreement prob-
lems, and shorter mean length of utterance when compared with age-
and language-matched controls (e.g., Dromi, Leonard, & Shteiman, 1993;
Lahey, 1988; Leonard, 1992; Leonard et al., 1987; Steckol & Leonard,
1979). Research on the linguistic characteristics of LI children that speak
Spanish as their primary language (SS; heretofore referred as SSLI chil-
dren), while acquiring English as a second language, is, however, very
limited. In this study, the term “primarily Spanish-speaking children”
refers to those children in the United States that speak Spanish at home,
attend bilingual education with Spanish emphasis in language arts, and

Journal of
1398 Journal
Speech,
of Speech,
Language,
Language,
and Hearing
and Hearing
ResearchResearch 1092-4388/98/4106-1398 ©1998, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Restrepo: Identifiers of Spanish-Speaking Children With LI
are learning English as a second language. These chil-
dren are fluent in Spanish, using it both at home with
parents and siblings and at school for academic purposes
and friendships. The children’s English skills are lim-
ited expressively, although they may have functional
receptive language skills.
Although the need to appropriately differentiate
SSLI children is well acknowledged, a paucity of re-
search exists regarding the validity of measures cur-
rently available that purport to do so. This is apparent,
in spite of the fact that Public Law 94-142 requires that
children in need of a communication assessment be
evaluated in their native language, and that SS chil-
dren now comprise the largest group of second language
learners in the U.S. (Roseberry-McKibbin & Eicholtz,
1994). Without appropriately normed and validated
measures, SS children with normal language (SSNL)
are at risk for overidentification, whereas the risk for
under identification resides with SSLI children (Kayser,
1995; Langdon, 1992; Roseberry-McKibbin & Eicholtz,
1994).
In the absence of valid language measures to iden-
tify SSLI children (Anderson, 1996; Langdon, 1992;
Roseberry-McKibbin & Eicholtz, 1994), clinicians work-
ing with these children may use tests that are not ap-
propriate for this population (cf. Anderson, 1996; Ortiz,
1987; Wilkinson & Ortiz, 1986). In the past, this prob-
lem has been addressed with suggestions that clinicians
use dynamic assessment, test modifications, and adap-
tations or develop local norms when they use tests that
are not appropriately normed for the child under assess-
ment, such as an SS child (Erickson & Iglesias, 1986;
Evard & Sabers, 1979; Harris, 1985; Kayser, 1989, 1995;
Taylor & Payne, 1983). Such modifications and adapta-
tions invalidate the norm-referenced interpretations
provided with the tests. Developing local norms alone
does not validate a test because there needs to be dem-
onstration that a test has high discriminant accuracy
for validity to be assumed.
Despite the fact that there are several types of test
validity measures (e.g., construct, content, and criterion
validity; Anastasi, 1988), the use of concurrent validity
is thought to be essential to determine whether or not a
measure is appropriate for the correct identification of
an LI child. One type of concurrent validity is discrimi-
nant accuracy. Discriminant accuracy refers to the
measure’s ability to appropriately differentiate groups
of children, such as NL versus LI (e.g., Hutchinson,
1996; Plante & Vance, 1994). Language tests that have
a discriminant accuracy for NL and LI children above
90% can be considered “good” discriminators, and those
that discriminate with an accuracy between 80% and
89% can be considered “fair” discriminators (Plante &
Vance, 1994).
1399
Identification of English-Speaking LI
(ESLI) Children
Only a few measures have been validated for the
purpose of identifying ESLI children (e.g., Dunn, Flax,
Sliwinski, & Aram, 1996; Gavin, Klee, & Membrino,
1993; Plante & Vance, 1994, 1995; Rescorla, 1993). In
1984, few speech and language tests met McCauley and
Swisher’s psychometric criteria for use in identifying
preschool children with speech and language problems.
Ten years later, Plante and Vance (1994) concluded that
there was little improvement in the psychometric qual-
ity of language tests. They found that of the tests that
met five or more of the McCauley and Swisher criteria,
only one test adequately discriminated between pre-
school NL and LI children (concurrent validity): the
Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test–II
(Werner & Kresheck, 1983) consistently discriminated
between preschool NL and LI children with a high level
of accuracy (90% or above).
Morphosyntactic measures of spontaneous language
may be useful for the identification of ESLI children
(Dunn et al., 1996; Gavin et al., 1993). Gavin et al. (1993)
entered a set of indices derived from the language
samples of 24 ESNL children and 24 ESLI preschool
children into a discriminant analysis. A set of four vari-
ables (verb-phrase errors, number of single-word utter-
ances, age, and number of three-element noun phrases)
accurately discriminated 91% of the ESNL and ESLI
children in their sample. The discriminant model was
then validated on another sample of ESLI and ESNL
children with a discriminant accuracy of 86%.
Parental report has also been validated as a mea-
sure for identification of LI children (Rescorla, 1993) and
has been found to be an accurate source of information
to describe a child’s current language skills (e.g., Dale,
1991; Dale, Bates, Reznick, & Morriset, 1989; Gutierrez-
Clellen, Palacios, & Thal, 1992; Hadley & Rice, 1991).
Rescorla (1993) conducted a series of validity studies on
a parent survey for 1- and 2-year-old ES children, the
Language Development Survey (Rescorla, 1989). She
found that the survey’s sensitivity (LI children classi-
fied as LI) ranged from .75 to .90, and the specificity
(NL children classified as NL) from .85 to .98.
In addition to the few validated measures for iden-
tifying LI children, there is considerable evidence from
parental report that LI children have a family history
of language problems, offering support to a possible bio-
logical basis of LI (e.g., Plante, 1991; Tallal, Ross, &
Curtiss, 1989; Tomblin, 1989). Tallal et al. (1989) found
that 77% of the LI children in their study had a reported
family history of speech, language, or academic prob-
lems in at least one first degree relative. In contrast,
Tomblin (1989) found that only 53% of the LI children
in his study had a reported family history of speech and
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
1400
language problems in at least one first-degree relative.
Though these differences may be related to whether or
not the investigators included academic skills (Tallal et
al., 1989) as part of the criteria used for identifying a posi-
tive history, the possibility of such factors contributing to
overall identification of language problems remains good.
Characteristics of SSLI Children
Children’s short-term language acquisition may
identify SSLI children. For example, ESLI children have
problems learning novel vocabulary (e.g., Dollaghan,
1987; Oetting, Rice, & Swank, 1995) and generalizing
bound morphemes to familiar and unfamiliar words (e.g.,
Connell, 1987; Connell & Stone, 1992; Roseberry &
Connell, 1991; Swisher, Restrepo, Plante, & Lowell,
1995). Peña, Quinn, and Iglesias (1992) used vocabu-
lary learning for identification of SSLI children. They
administered the Expressive One Word Picture Vocabu-
lary Test (EOWPVT; Gardner, 1979) to a group of SSNL
children and a group of SSLI children, which did not
differentiate the groups. Subsequently, they taught the
children naming skills through a mediated learning
paradigm and were again administered the EOWPVT.
Peña, Quinn, and Iglesias (1992) found that such com-
bination of mediated learning and the vocabulary mea-
sure could differentiate SS children at risk for language
problems and those with NL.
In a study by Roseberry and Connell (1991), a novel
bound-morpheme learning paradigm (Connell, 1987)
involving a bound morpheme that indicated part of an
object has been used to differentiate SSLI and SSNL
children. These investigators correctly classified 85% of
the SS children in the study as NL or LI, based on the
SS children’s performance on the generalization of the
bound morpheme. SSLI children also may have
morphosyntactic deficits characterized by errors of num-
ber, tense, person, and gender agreement, as well as
omission and substitution of pronouns, articles, and
prepositions (Ambert, 1986; Juarez, 1983; Merino, 1983).
For example, 5- to 8-year-old SSLI children obtained
significantly lower scores than controls in gender and
number agreement, verb tenses, plurals, and pronouns
(Merino, 1983). Anderson (1996) found that a structured
spontaneous language elicitation task yielded more
morphosyntactic forms than the Spanish Structured Pho-
tographic Expressive Language Test–Preschool (SSPELT–
P; Werner & Kresheck, 1989) from preschool-age SSNL
children. However, no concurrent validity is yet available.
Summary and Rationale for the
Present Study
The purpose of this study was to identify a set of
measures that would discriminate SSLI children from
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
JSLHR, Volume 41, 1398–1411, December 1998
SSNL children. Vocabulary, bound-morpheme generali-
zation, morphosyntactic measures, and parental inter-
view concerning family history and perception of LI were
chosen as measures for discriminant analyses with SS
children. However, because there is no existing gold stan-
dard for SSLI children, the validation of these measures
with an independent measure was not possible, result-
ing in an unavoidable circularity. The solution adopted
was to employ stringent selection criteria for subject
inclusion. The clinical judgments of certified, bilingual
(Spanish-English), speech-language pathologists were
used to identify a group of moderate to severe SSLI chil-
dren for comparison with a matched group of SSNL chil-
dren on the measures of interest. An exploratory
stepwise discriminant analysis was used to select the
measures that most accurately and efficiently discrimi-
nated between the two groups of SS children. A confir-
matory discriminant analysis was then used to deter-
mine whether the variables selected through the
exploratory analysis accurately predicted group mem-
bership on a second, independent sample of children.
Method
Participants
Sixty-two SS children (5;0 to 7;1) were selected from
preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade classes in which
the primary language of instruction was Spanish. There
were 42 boys and 20 girls from two school districts in
Tucson, Arizona. Thirty-one SS children (M = 6;1, SD =
0;8) had a diagnosis of moderate to severe LI, using the
criteria to be described below. A comparison group, 31
SSNL children (M = 6;2, SD = 0;7) were identified as
having NL; each SSNL child was matched to an SSLI
child according to age (±3 months) and gender. In all
but one case, children were also matched for school and,
whenever possible, for classroom (87% of the total num-
ber of children). According to the school records for the
free lunch program, all but 2 of the children in the study
were from low income families. The 2 remaining chil-
dren were from middle income backgrounds. Income did
not appear to impact performance on the study’s mea-
sures during the study. All the families had Mexican-
American backgrounds.
All children demonstrated hearing within normal
limits as measured by a pure-tone hearing screening
(ANSI, 1969) on the day testing began. Teacher report
indicated the absence of physical, social, or behavioral
problems for all participants (see Appendix A). Additional
criteria included cognition within the normal range and
Spanish as the child’s primary language.
The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children–
Nonverbal Scale (KABC–NVS; Kaufman & Kaufman,
1983) was administered to ensure that nonverbal IQ was
Restrepo: Identifiers of Spanish-Speaking Children With LI 1401

within the normal range. Scores ranged from 77 to 115 Table 1. Means and standard deviations of participants’ character-
for the SLI group (M = 93.9, SD = 11.57) and 82 to 119 istics by group.
for the NL group (M = 99, SD = 7.87). A wider range
than the arbitrary cutoff score of 85 nonverbal IQ was Characteristic SSNL SSLI
used because there is no evidence that children with Age 6;2 (0;7) 6;1 ( 0;8)
normal nonverbal IQ between 70 and 85 perform differ-
Kaufman Assessment Battery
ently from those with nonverbal IQ > 85 (Dale & Cole,
for Children—NVS* 99.00 (7.87) 93.90 (11.57)
1991; Fey, Long, & Cleave, 1994; Plante, 1998). Further-
Teachers’ questionnaire
more, a restricted IQ range affects the external validity
Spanish* 65.09 (3.61) 62.55 (5.79)
of the study by excluding children with normal nonver-
bal IQ that would otherwise qualify (Fey et al., 1994; Teachers’ questionnaire
English 25.16 (13.34) 21.29 (13.84)
Plante, 1998). To eliminate the possibility of including
children with mental retardation, the cutoff score for Home bilingual usage
normal nonverbal IQ plus the standard error of mea- estimate—Spanish 21.48 (4.78) 24.32 (7.35)
surement was used. Home bilingual usage
estimate—English 3.90 (3.92) 4.54 (4.48)
Spanish Language Note. SSNL = Spanish-speaking children with normal language; SSLI =
A number of variables played a role in determining Spanish-speaking children with language impairment; NVS =
that all children used Spanish as their primary language Nonverbal Scale.
in both home and school environments: (a) classroom *p < .05.
placement, (b) language-arts instruction in Spanish, (c)
The Home Bilingual Usage Estimate (HBUE; Skoczylas, Selection of SSLI Children
1971), and (d) a teachers’ questionnaire (Appendix A).
All children came from bilingual classes where content Because there is no agreed-upon best practice for
instruction was in Spanish. To qualify for these class- the identification of SSLI children in the United States,
rooms, all children had shown primary Spanish profi- there is no measure available to provide external vali-
ciency on the Language Assessment Scale (LAS; Duncan dation to the identification of the SSLI children. How-
& DeAvila, 1985), a measure of both Spanish and En- ever, clinical judgment is reliable for both the identifi-
glish abilities, and on the school’s own parent-home- cation of a clinical population and the severity of a
language-use questionnaire. Another criterion that en- disorder (e.g., Lewis, 1995). Teacher perception has also
sured Spanish was the primary home language was the been found to be accurate for the identification of chil-
HBUE, a structured questionnaire completed by the dren at risk for language or learning disabilities
children’s parents. There were no significant differences (Frontera & Horowitz, 1995; Salvesen & Undheim,
[t(60) = 2.00, p = .07; t(60) = 2.00, p = .54] between the 1994). For this study, rigorous criteria, reflecting both
SSNL and SSLI groups in either Spanish scores or En- clinical and teacher judgments, were employed as the
glish scores (see Table 1). gold standard.
A teachers’ questionnaire was also developed (see Only children that were identified by ASHA-certified,
Appendix A). A portion of the questionnaire examined Spanish-English bilingual, speech-language pathologists
the teacher’s perception of the child’s English and Span- (SLPs) were included in the SSLI group. Interviews with
ish proficiency and use across several settings and each SLP regarding the method of identification used to
interactors. A 3-point scale was used. To qualify as a determine the diagnosis of SSLI revealed that they re-
participant, children had to demonstrate a 10-point lied on multiple sources of information. Measures in-
Spanish > English difference by teacher report. There cluded the Pruebas de Expresión Oral y de Percepción
were no significant differences between the groups for de la Lengua Española (Mares, 1981), a norm-referenced
the English skills [t(60) = 1.76, p = .267], though a sig- measure for Mexican- American children; informal mea-
nificant difference did emerge for the Spanish score [t(60) sures of auditory comprehension and oral expression;
= 2.000, p = .042]. This latter difference was not sur- language sample analyses of language form, content, and
prising, given that lower scores for SSLI children’s gram- use in comparison to the local population; classroom
matical skills in expressive language proficiency were observation; and parent and teacher interviews.
to be expected for their primary language. Finally, all All SSLI children had been diagnosed by the SLP
children used only Spanish during the entire pretesting as having a moderate to severe language impairment in
part of the study. Table 1 shows performances by group, Spanish. This higher range of severity was chosen to
means and standard deviations for all measures used further ensure the certainty of the diagnosis. Addition-
during the qualifying part of this investigation. ally, each child had to be currently enrolled in language

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

1402
intervention with an ASHA-certified, bilingual SLP, or
with a native Spanish-speaking aide, with at least 3
years experience in the provision of services to SSLI
children, under the supervision of a bilingual certified
SLP. Finally, the teachers’ questionnaire that was de-
veloped for this study included questions related to per-
ceptions of the child’s language abilities. To be selected
for participation, teacher’s judgments had to reflect the
perception of child difficulties in Spanish or in academic
areas.
Selection of SSNL Children
The SSNL children were enrolled in only regular
educational classrooms and not in any resource pro-
grams for at-risk children. Additionally, they had no lan-
guage, academic, physical, or behavioral problems, as
judged by the teachers and reported in the teachers’
questionnaires.
Measures and Procedures
Description of Candidate Discriminators
All the children selected for the study participated
in a battery of verbal measures, and their parents re-
sponded to a parent interview. Given that the measures
selected had not been validated for the identification of
SSLI children, only raw scores and raw data were used.
Research assistants (RAs) conducted all testing and in-
terviews in Spanish. The RAs that tested the children
and interviewed parents were native Spanish speakers
attending the undergraduate program in Speech and
Hearing Sciences at the University of Arizona. They were
trained by the author and kept blind to the nature of
the study and the children’s classifications until the con-
clusion of the study. All measures were given in random
order, and each of the two RAs tested half SSNL and
half SSLI children.
Language Measures. The language measures were
obtained from spontaneous language samples, a stan-
dardized test, and language-learning tasks. An RA elic-
ited the language samples in three different contexts:
picture description, interview with the child, and story
retelling. The RA encouraged the child to speak as freely
as possible in all contexts through the use of open-ended
questions, semantically related to the prior response.
All language samples were audio taped and then tran-
scribed by the RA who collected the samples.
In the interview, the RA introduced preselected top-
ics for discussion, such as a scary event, a hospital ex-
perience, a trip to the zoo, or a favorite movie. In the
story retelling format, the RA used one of two Mercer
Meyer “frog” books: A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog (Mayer,
1967) and Frog Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969), asking
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
JSLHR, Volume 41, 1398–1411, December 1998
the child to listen carefully for later retelling. Pictures
were used for contextual support in both the telling and
retelling phases.
Prior to analyzing the spontaneous language
samples, an RA segmented transcripts into “terminable
units” (T-units), defined as any clause and its subordi-
nate clauses (Hunt, 1965). The following language-form
measures were then applied to the samples: Develop-
mental Assessment of Spanish Grammar (DASG;
Toronto, 1976), mean length of T-unit (MLTU), and a
ratio of number of grammatical errors per total number
of T-units (NETU).
Most utterances in the children’s samples were in
Spanish. A few T-units were excluded due to English
use (2.6% of the total) words. These T-units were dis-
carded even if the rest of the sentence was in Spanish
because they presented a problem for coding grammati-
cal errors. A few English words were integrated by the
community into their dialect such as bye-bye, baby, VCR,
and these were included. T-units with unintelligible
words were excluded from the analyses (7.07% of the
total T-units). An RA counted and averaged the number
of words per T-unit, following Gutierrez-Clellen and
Hofstetter’s (1994) Spanish adaptation of the Hunt
(1965) T-unit analysis. A T-unit was defined as any main
clause and its subordinate clauses (i.e., “The cat who
ate the mouse is here”). MLTU was used because it is
indicative of age differences in sentence complexity in
school-age SSNL children and because it better reflects
syntactic complexity in a highly inflected language.
The Spanish adaptation (Toronto, 1976) of the De-
velopmental Sentence Scoring (Lee, 1974), the Develop-
mental Assessment of Spanish Grammar (DASG), was
also used as language sample analysis. The DASG as-
signs weighted scores to sentences based on develop-
mental morphosyntactic hierarchies in six categories:
(1) indefinite pronouns and noun modifiers, (2) personal
pronouns, (3) primary verbs, (4) secondary verbs, (5)
conjunctions, and (6) interrogative words. Three addi-
tional categories (possessives, plurals, and negatives)
are taken into account within the above categories. An
RA scored the sentences and averaged the scores accord-
ing to the guidelines, except for sentences conjoined with
the conjunction y (and), which were considered as two
T-units for analysis. Due to this coding variation, as well
as the difference in the sample of children, the DASG
norms were not applied.
The third spontaneous language-form analysis was
the NETU. In this analysis, a native Spanish-speaking
RA identified grammatical errors in each T-unit. Verb
or noun phrase agreement problems, use of inappropri-
ate pronouns, word-order problems, and omission of
words were considered grammatical errors. Lexical er-
rors, phonological errors, and articulation errors were
Restrepo: Identifiers of Spanish-Speaking Children With LI
excluded because the focus was on morphosyntactic
skills. Cohesion errors across sentences were not counted
in this analysis because it is difficult to determine
whether the problem is due to morphosyntactic, prag-
matic, or developmental difficulties at this age; only er-
rors of agreement within a sentence were included. The
investigator, who is also a native Spanish speaker,
checked the RA’s coding of grammatical errors. When
disagreements between the RA and the author were
encountered, they were discussed until agreement was
obtained. A second RA added and averaged the total
number of grammatical errors per T-unit to use for the
statistical analyses.
The Spanish Structured Photographic Expressive
Language Test–II (SSPELT–II; Werner & Kresheck,
1989) is a formal test without norms that measures ex-
pressive morphosyntactic skills. The RA provided a se-
ries of photographs to the child and asked the child to
complete a sentence, to respond to a question, or to de-
scribe it. The child was praised for attention to the task,
but no feedback was provided relating to the accuracy
of the responses on the test.
Two learning measures were developed to assess the
child’s novel vocabulary learning (NVL) and novel bound-
morpheme generalization (NBMG). The NVL measure
was designed to teach three novel nouns (pefo, duco, tijo)
that corresponded to three novel objects depicted in line
drawings on cards. The novel words were in CVCV or-
der to resemble a common word form in Spanish. Three
native Spanish speakers verified (100% agreement) that
the novel words were phonetically consistent with Span-
ish and that they were indeed novel.
The novel vocabulary was introduced in four ways
in fixed order: modeling, imitation, identification, and
naming. However, only scores on the naming portion of
the NVL were used for the statistical analyses of the
study because of earlier suggestions that LI children
typically comprehend novel words (e.g., Dollaghan,
1987). Scores on the naming task indicated the total tri-
als to criterion of three out of four consecutive correct
responses for each novel word.
The NBMG learning measure adapted from the
Roseberry and Connell (1991) task involved learning a
novel bound morpheme and generalizing it to new novel
nouns. The bound morpheme was /-ono/, which indicated
half of an object. To introduce the bound morpheme, the
RA first showed the child a set of nine line drawings
representing familiar objects and asked the child to la-
bel the objects. If the child did not name any of the ob-
jects with the form expected, the RA provided the name
of the noun for the child. After the RA presented the
nine nouns, the RA showed the child the set of nine cards
with the drawings of the whole object and half the ob-
ject in each card and asked the child to listen and then
1403
repeat the affixed nouns. Once the child finished imi-
tating the affixed nouns, the RA asked the child to choose
four of the nine cards and elicited the affixed noun, giv-
ing specific feedback regarding the accuracy of the re-
sponse of the first two cards and neutral feedback on
the last two cards.
The RA presented three picture pairs, a whole ob-
ject and a half object, of words used during the NVL
task. The RA also presented a novel word (with a pic-
ture pair) that was not presented during the NVL task,
for a total of four items. The RA labeled the whole-ob-
ject picture and asked the child to label the half-object
picture. Each card was presented twice, for a total of
eight possible correct responses.
Children’s phonological approximations of the stems
and morphemes were considered correct. The correct
stem with the correct bound morpheme, the correct stem
with an approximation of the bound morpheme, and an
approximation of the stem with the correct bound mor-
pheme were considered correct responses. The use of a
bare stem or a completely different stem with a correct
bound morpheme were not considered correct responses.
Parent Interview. The parent interview elicited a
family history of educational, speech, and language prob-
lems (FHSLP) and a report of the child’s educational,
speech, or language problems (PRSLP; see Appendix B
for the English translation). All questions were in yes/
no format. The FHSLP measure contained 21 questions
addressing whether the child’s family members (i.e., sib-
lings, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents)
had a history of speech and language deficits, educa-
tional problems, learning or reading disabilities, and
attention deficit or hyperactivity problems. The PRSLP
measure contained 29 questions that asked whether the
parents thought their child had current problems with
speech, expressive language, receptive language, learn-
ing, or attention, in comparison with other children the
same age.
Reliability
Reliability between at least two examiners was cal-
culated as percent of agreement (point-to- point) for each
measure, the transcription, and the T-unit segmenta-
tion. Twenty percent of the data were randomly selected
and reanalyzed by a second examiner (see Table 2 for a
summary of the reliability for each measure, the tran-
scription, and the T-unit segmentation by group).
Results
To identify the set of measures that best discrimi-
nated between the two groups, exploratory discriminant
analyses were run on 23 matched pairs (exploratory data
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
1404 JSLHR, Volume 41, 1398–1411, December 1998

Table 2. Point-to-point reliability on language and cognitive discriminant accuracy could not be improved. Because
measure, on transcription, and on terminable unit segmentation by it is possible that the discriminant accuracy of the model
group. can be maintained with fewer than four measures, the
PRSLP and NETU were entered alone into a discrimi-
Measure SSNL SSLI nant analysis to determine whether the sensitivity and
Nonverbal vocabulary learning 99.22% 99.44% specificity of the four-measure model were maintained.
Using these two measures only, the discriminant accu-
Novel bound morpheme generalization 99.04% 99.04%
racy remained; specificity was 100% and sensitivity was
Mean length of T-unit 100.00% 100.00%
91.3%. These results indicate that the same level of dis-
Developmental assessment of Spanish criminant accuracy that the four-measure model pro-
grammar 89.50% 84.86% duced could be maintained with the two-measure model,
Number of error per T-unit 100.00% 95.23% although efficiency could not be improved with fewer
Kaufman Assessment Battery for than the two measures. See Table 5 for the sensitivity
Children—NVS 97.91% 97.91% and specificity for each of the measures.
Parent report of speech and language
problems 98.85% 97.00%
Confirmatory Discriminant Analyses
Family history of speech and language
problems 99.57% 98.91% Results of the confirmatory discriminant analyses
Spanish Structured Photographic indicated that the two- and four-measure discriminant
Expressive Language Test–II 99.00% 89.79%
Transcription 90.20% 85.77% Table 3. Means and standard deviations for each measure by
group.
T-unit segmentation 100.00% 100.00%

Note. SSNL = Spanish-speaking children with normal language; SSLI = Measure SSNL SSLI
Spanish-speaking children with language impairment; NVS =
Spanish Structured Photographic
Nonverbal Scale.
Expressive Language Test–II 44.06 (3.99) 31.55 (9.82)
Parent report of speech and
set), randomly selected from the 31 matched pairs. Con- language problems 4.7 (2.76) 17.48 (6.54)
firmatory discriminant analyses were then run on the Family history of speech and
remaining eight matched pairs (confirmatory data set) language problems 9.93 (7.34) 23.39 (13.20)
to validate the results on an independent sample from Number of errors per T-unit 0.09 (0.05) 0.39 (0.21)
which the original discriminant function was derived.
Mean length of T-unit 5.64 (.87) 4.51 (1.00)
Developmental assessment of
Exploratory Discriminant Analyses Spanish grammar 5.36 (1.01) 3.97 (1.19)
Novel vocabulary learning 22.74 (11.24) 26.19 (13.52)
The children’s scores on SSPELT–II, MLTU, NETU,
DASG, PRSLP, FHSLP, NVL, and NBMG were included Novel bound morpheme
generalization 4.35 (3.32) 2.80 (3.41)
in the stepwise discriminant analysis. Table 3 shows the
means and standard deviations for each measure by the Note. SSNL = Spanish-speaking children with normal language; SSLI =
two groups of children. The discriminant analysis iden- Spanish-speaking children with language impairment.
tified four measures that best discriminated between
SSNL and SSLI children: PRSLP, NETU, MLTU, FHSLP
(ordered by the degree of variance; see Table 4). Table 4. Results of the stepwise discriminant analysis.

The discriminant model classified 21 of 23 SSLI as

Individual Total
LI, indicating that the model had a sensitivity of 91.3%; Measure variance variance
whereas it classified all of 23 SSNL as NL, indicating a
specificity of 100%. The total average squared canoni- Parent report of speech and
cal correlation of the model was .79 (p > .0001). To test language problems .57** .57**
the remaining measures for their potential contribution Family history of speech and
to the model’s discriminant accuracy, these measures language problems .15** .72**
were added individually by removing the two measures Number of errors per T-unit .04* .76*
that added the least variance. This left the PRSLP and Mean length of T-unit .03* .79*
NETU that accounted for 72% of the variance. When
the remaining measures were added individually, the *p < .05. **p < .0001.

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Restrepo: Identifiers of Spanish-Speaking Children With LI 1405

Table 5. Sensitivity and specificity of each measure. MLTU, and FHSLP—were entered into the stepwise
analysis. This three-measure model discriminated with
Characteristic Sensitivity Specificity a sensitivity of 83.9% and a specificity of 100% of the
total sample (91.9% accuracy). The total average squared
Spanish Structured Photo-
graphic Expressive
canonical correlation of the model was .71 (p > .0001).
Language Test–II 65.22% (15/23) 91.30% (21/23) The results indicate that the same three measures in-
volved in the initial analysis are still valid even when
Parent report of speech and
language problems 73.91% (17/23) 95.65% (22/23)
the variance of PRSLP is removed from the analysis,
thus confirming the value of the results.
Family history of speech and
language problems 73.91% (17/23) 91.30% (21/23)
Mean length of T-unit 69.57% (16/23) 86.96% (20/23)
Discussion
Number of errors per T-unit 69.57% (16/23) 100% (23/23)
Developmental assessment of
The present study was designed to identify a set of
Spanish grammar 65.22% (15/23) 91.30% (21/23) measures that would discriminate between SSNL and
SSLI children with a high level of accuracy. A stepwise
Novel vocabulary learning 43.48% (10/23) 69.57% (16/23)
discriminant analysis indicated that four of eight mea-
Novel bound morpheme
sures accounted for 79% of the variance in the model
generalization 65.22% (15/23) 60.87% (14/23)
and successfully discriminated between the groups. They
were: parental report of their child’s speech and language
models correctly classified 7 of 8 SSLI children (sensi- problems (PRSLP), family history of the same (FHSLP),
tivity of 87.5%) and all 8 of the SSNL children (specific- mean length of T-unit (MLTU), and number of errors
ity of 100%). Table 6 provides the sensitivity and speci- per T-unit (NETU). Results from a sample different from
ficity of the models, and Table 7 the weights and the one in which the discriminant functions were de-
constants for the two- and four-measure discriminant rived validated these findings.
models. To control for possible bias of the PRSLP, given The high level of discriminant accuracy was main-
that parents knew of the child’s diagnosis, a stepwise tained when a discriminant model was tested with the
discriminant analysis was run without this measure. two measures that accounted for the most variance of
Results indicated that only three measures—NETU, the four-measure model (72%): PRSLP and NETU. The

Table 6. Sensitivity and specificity of the two discriminant models.

Exploratory data set Confirmatory data set

Model Sensitivity Specificity Sensitivity Specificity

PRSLP 91.3% 100% 87.5% 100%

Number of errors per T-unit (21/23) (23/23) (7/8) (8/8)
PRSLP
Number of errors per T-unit 91.3% 100% 87.5% 100%
Mean length of T-unit (21/23) (23/23) (7/8) (8/8)
FHSLP

Note. PRSLP = parent report of speech and language problems; FHSLP = family history of speech and language
problems.

Table 7. Discriminant functions for the two- and four-measure models.

Model Discriminant function

Four-measure model DF score = –.2084969 + PRSLP(.1019379) + NETU(4.0810516) +

FHSLP(.0429730) + MLTU(–.5324122)
Two-measure model DF score = –2.6891650 + PRSLP(.1447095) + NETU(4.3891402)

Note. DF = discriminant function; PRSLP = parent report of speech and language problems; NETU = number of
error per terminable units; MLTU = mean length of terminable unit; FHSLP = family history of speech and
language problems.

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

1406
level of accuracy was true for both the exploratory and
confirmatory data sets. These results fall within the cri-
terion for acceptable discriminant accuracy for identify-
ing LI children (Plante & Vance, 1994). Accordingly, a
rate of identification below an 80% level would have “se-
rious social consequences” (p. 21).
The four measures found to be accurate discrimina-
tors between the SSNL and SSLI groups involved two
procedural contexts: parental interview and spontane-
ous language-form analysis. Although standardized
measures do not appear to be a requirement of appro-
priate diagnoses, parents appear to be a valuable source
of information for identifying SSLI children. These re-
sults provide support for Kayser’s (1995) suggestion that,
in addition to obtaining case histories, clinicians should
interview parents about their children’s language skills
in a systematic manner. Parental report may be espe-
cially important when assessing children for whom there
are no appropriate norm-referenced measures, such as
SS children.
Several factors may have contributed to the discrimi-
nant accuracy of the questionnaire. Parents have been
found to be quite accurate at assessing current language
skills (Dale et al., 1989). Furthermore, the specificity of
the questions (e.g., noun-phrase agreement skills, abil-
ity to follow directions, and ability to retrieve words)
and the requirement of some direct comparisons of their
children’s abilities to peers, may have led the parents to
more accurate determination of normalcy or atypicality
in relation to the child’s peers.
Because of the possible bias in the PRSLP, (e.g.,
parents of SSLI children already knew their child’s di-
agnosis) a stepwise discriminant analysis with the whole
sample was run to determine if, by removing the vari-
ance of this measure, the same measures would discrimi-
nate and, if so, with what accuracy. The results indi-
cated that the same measures, NETU, MLTU, and
FHSLP were entered into the model. Furthermore, the
level of discrimination was still high (91.9% accuracy),
indicating that the remaining measures are necessary
for the accurate identification of SSLI children.
Several researchers of ESLI children have docu-
mented the increased prevalence of positive family his-
tories for speech, language, and academic problems (e.g.,
Plante, 1991; Tallal et al., 1989; Tomblin, 1989). In the
present study, results of the FHSLP measure also sug-
gested that SS children with family histories positive
for these problems are also likely to be at greater risk
for LI than those without such histories.
From the spontaneous language-form analysis, the
NETU measure of morphosyntactic errors per T-unit
yielded results consonant with findings of ESLI children.
That is, the language of SSLI is characterized by a
morphosyntactic deficit. This finding is compatible with
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
JSLHR, Volume 41, 1398–1411, December 1998
Gavin et al.’s (1993) report that the number of verb-
phrase errors per utterance accounted for the most vari-
ance in a discriminant model of language indices that
discriminated between ESNL and ESLI groups. In ad-
dition, it supports the findings of Dunn et al. (1996) that
structural errors are contributors to the discrimination
of ESLI and ESNL groups.
As expected on the MLTU measure, the SSLI group
used less complex sentences than the SSNL group, con-
sistent with a report by Linares-Orama and Sanders
(1977). Linares-Orama and Sanders used MLU in mor-
phemes to describe the language of preschool children,
and this study used MLTU to describe the language of
young school-age children. Different measures of syn-
tactic complexity may be more appropriate for different
age groups of SS children. MLU in morphemes might
identify preschool SSLI children, whereas MLTU might
best identify school-age SSLI children.
Research on SSLI children should continue to iden-
tify the types of language deficits that characterize these
children so that the understanding of the nature of SSLI
can be enhanced and identification improved. For ex-
ample, Restrepo (1997) found that article errors are one
of the most common types of errors in SSLI children.
These errors occur mainly in gender agreement and not
in the use of definite versus indefinite articles, or in
number agreement. Therefore, SSLI children may pro-
duce more errors in the noun system than ESLI chil-
dren who produce more errors in the verb system (Gavin
et al., 1993). Because Spanish is a more inflected language
than English, and agreement occurs in verb and noun
phrases, it could be hypothesized that errors in both the
noun and verb phrase contributed to the discrimination
between the SSNL and SSLI groups in the present study.
Nevertheless, research is needed to understand noun
phrase status in SSLI children’s language.
In contrast to the present findings for learning tasks,
Roseberry and Connell (1991) demonstrated that an
English bound-morpheme-learning measure was useful
in classifying 85% of SSNL and SSLI children into the
appropriate groups. It may be that some SSNL children
showed early difficulties in vocabulary learning or that
the learning measures in the current study did not tax
the children’s language system enough to produce group
differences. ESLI children perform similarly to controls
when required to imitate affixed words while learning a
bound morpheme. However, when imitation is not re-
quired, the groups differ (Connell, 1987; Connell & Stone,
1992). These findings suggest a primary role of imitation
in learning morphemes. In the current study, required
imitation during the vocabulary and the bound-morpheme
tasks may have limited discriminability of these measures.
In summary, parent interviewing and language sam-
pling procedures, as used in this study, currently appear
Restrepo: Identifiers of Spanish-Speaking Children With LI
to be the clinician’s best tools for identification of SSLI
children. Replication of these findings with other groups
of SS children and the continuation of data-based ap-
proaches to the identification of LI in all children is cer-
tainly warranted. Consequences for misclassified chil-
dren are serious (cf. Plante & Vance, 1994). A child with
LI that is not identified misses the available opportuni-
ties for academic and communication support that can
promote success in school. On the other hand, a child
who is mislabeled LI will likewise miss the opportuni-
ties and resources for academic success. Both can result
in children whose emotional and developmental well
being are compromised.
The results of this study confirm that well trained
and qualified, bilingual speech-language pathologists
accurately identify SSLI children with moderate to se-
vere deficits, despite the absence of validated measures.
However, the multiple qualitative methods they use (e.g.,
interviews, informal assessment, and observation) are
not efficient and are not widely used. Furthermore, not
all SS children have fully proficient bilingual clinicians
available for evaluations. These findings point to the
most efficient approaches to valid assessment and cor-
rect identification of SSLI children by all speech-lan-
guage pathologists, even those who have only a transla-
tor available to them.
Acknowledgments
This article was adapted from the doctoral dissertation
completed by the author at the University of Arizona,
Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, under Linda
Swisher. The research was supported in part by the Tucson
Scottish Rite Charitable Foundation, by the U.S. Depart-
ment of Education Grant H029D20070, and by the National
Multipurpose Research and Training Center Grant DC-
01409 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other
Communication Disorders. The author would like to thank
especially Linda Swisher and Elena Plante for their support
and advice during the dissertation process and Ana Dokken
for her assistance in the data collection and transcription. In
addition, the author would like to thank Marilyn Newhoff for
her great support editing the manuscript. The author also
thanks the staff, students, and their families that partici-
pated in this study from the Tucson Unified and Sunny Side
Unified School Districts and the undergraduate students
that contributed to data collection and analysis.
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Appendix A. Questionnaire for teachers about the child’s language at home and at school.

Name of the child __________________________ School/grade _______________________

Age of the child ___________________________ Teacher ______________________

Use refers to how much the child uses each language. Give English Spanish
information on each language, English and Spanish. Mark for Expressive Language Use Prof Use Prof
Use:
1. Speaks with you in class 012 012 012 012
0 - never uses the indicated language (Expressive Language),
2. Speaks with aides 012 012 012 012
hears it very little (Receptive Language)
3. Speaks with best friend 012 012 012 012
1 - uses the indicated language a little (Expressive Language),
4. Speaks with classmates 012 012 012 012
hears it sometimes (Receptive Language)
5. Speaks outside class 012 012 012 012
2 - uses the indicated language most of the time (Expressive
Language), hears it most of the time (Receptive Language) 6. Speaks with parents 012 012 012 012
7. Speaks with brothers/sists 012 012 012 012
Proficiency (Prof) refers to how well the child speaks each
language. Give information on each language. Mark for Prof: 8. Speaks with other family 012 012 012 012
0 - cannot speak the indicated language has a few words or 9. Speaks it in a program after 012 012 012 012
phrases (Expressive Language), cannot produce sentences, school or at the babysitter
only understands a few words (Receptive Language)
Receptive Language
1 - limited proficiency with grammatical errors, limited
1. Listens to you in class 012 012 012 012
vocabulary (Expressive Language), understands the
general idea of what is being said (Receptive Language) 2. Listens to aides 012 012 012 012
2 - good proficiency with few grammatical errors, good 3. Listens to best friend 012 012 012 012
vocabulary (Expressive Language), understands most of 4. Listens to classmates 012 012 012 012
what is said (Receptive Language) 5. Listens outside class 012 012 012 012
6. Listens to parents 012 012 012 012
7. Listens to brothers/sists 012 012 012 012
8. Listens to other family 012 012 012 012
9. Listens to in a program after 012 012 012 012
school or at the babysitter

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

1410 JSLHR, Volume 41, 1398–1411, December 1998

Do you think the child has language Teacher’s Comments

problems? YES/NO
Do you think the child has academic
or learning problems? YES/NO
Do you think the child has behavioral
or social problems? YES/NO
Do you think the child has physical
problems? YES/NO

Appendix B. Translation of the parent interview.

Today’s date: ______ Code :____ Date of Birth __/__/__ Age of the child: ________
Child’s name: _____________ Name of the informant ________ Relation to the child: ____________________

Parental report of the child’s speech or 13. Does your child have difficulty finding the
exact words to express him/herself? yes no
language problems
14. Does your child have difficulty explaining or
1. In comparison with other children of the same
describing things? yes no
age, do you think that your child has problems
expressing him/herself or being understood? yes no 15. Is it difficult for your child to tell you what he/
she did during the day? yes no
2. In comparison with children of the same age, do
you think that your child has speech problems? yes no 16. Is your child frustrated because he/she can not
talk well? yes no
3. Do your family or friends think that your child is
delayed in language? yes no 17. Do you or your child’s siblings have to repeat
what you say to him or her with more frequency
4. For his/her age or in comparison with other
than to other children? yes no
children, does your child have difficulty
producing correct phrases? yes no 18. Do you have to repeat questions or directions
to your child more than to other children? yes no
5. Do your family or friends think that your child
is difficult to understand? yes no 19. Does your child understand most of what he/
she is told? yes no
6. For his/her age, does your child produce very
short phrases? yes no 20. Do you think that your child has difficulty
learning new words? yes no
7. Do you think that your child has problems with
his/her grammar? yes no 21. In comparison with children the same age, is it
difficult for your child to learn new ideas? yes no
8. When your child talks about the same person,
does he/she have difficulty using the correct 22. In comparison with children the same age,
pronoun like he, she, they all the time in his/her does your child have a very low or limited
conversation? yes no vocabulary? yes no
9. When your child talks about something that 23. Do you think that your child has a learning
happened, does he/she have difficulty problem? yes no
explaining when this happened or uses words 24. Does your child have dyslexia? yes no
in different times? For example, talking about 25. For his/her age, does your child have difficulty
yesterday the child say “falls” instead of “fell” yes no paying attention for a long period? yes no
10. Does you child use correct phrases almost all 26. Is your child hyperactive? yes no
the time? yes no
27. Does your child have difficulty attending to an
11. When your child talks, does he/she have activity or game? yes no
difficulty differentiating whether he/she is
28. For his/her age, does your child have difficulty
talking about a man or a woman? yes no
pronouncing words? yes no
12. In comparison with other children of the same
29. Is your child’s pronunciation easy to
age, does your child use many words that are
understand? yes no
too general and not descriptive such as this,
that, thing? yes no

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Restrepo: Identifiers of Spanish-Speaking Children With LI 1411

History of speech and language problems in the family

Has or had any of the child’s (brothers, sisters) any of the following?
bro/sist father mother par/fath par/moth
30. normal language development yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
31. problems of attention or hyperactivity yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
32. difficulties in school or learning yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
33. dyslexia or a problem learning to read yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
34. speech or pronunciation problems yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
35. language problems, like in phrases, words, and
grammar yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
36. special education classes yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
37. speech and language therapy yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
38. program for children with speech, language or
learning problems yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
39. omits words or parts of words in his/her phrases
after age 3 yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
40. problems producing correct sentences yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
41. problems making his/herself understood yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
42. problems expressing ideas with words yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
43. problems following directions yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
44. problems understanding questions yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
45. problems understanding what he/she is told yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
46. problems producing certain sounds yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
47. problems reading or learning to read yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
48. stuttering after 4 years of age yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
49. difficulty learning English yes no yes no yes no yes no yes no
50. repeated one or more grades yes no yes no yes no yes no

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research