Model Eval- English.Mandarin.12-11.pdf
WaLi is a 12 year old Mandarin/English sequential bilingual attending middle school in Chinatown, Manhattan. WaLi is an English Language Learner who is in the process of acquiring academic language in English but experiencing language loss in Mandarin as a result of his linguistic environment.
Background Information
WaLi, a 12;11 year old bilingual Mandarin-English male, was evaluated on 11/23/13 to assess his speech and language development. The parent interview was conducted in Mandarin with his mother, Mrs. Li, who served as a reliable primary informant for background information.
Birth, Medical, and Developmental History
Per Mrs. Li’s report, WaLi’s birth, medical history, and developmental milestones were unremarkable and have never been evaluated by other medical, psychological, or learning specialist. According to Mrs. Li, there are no differences between WaLi’s speech and language development when compared to his peers in his speech community. In addition, no significant progress or regression in WaLi speech and language were noted in the past six months.
Family and Social History
WaLi lives in Chinatown, Manhattan with his biological parents, and 8-year-old brother within a Mandarin-speaking community. WaLi is primarily cared for by his mother. Mrs. Li reported no significant changes in the family structure over the past six months. WaLi’s father was born and raised in Fujian, China, and came to the United States (U.S.) in 1998. He is currently a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan. His mother, a housekeeper, was born and raised in Malaysia, and came to the U.S. in 1997. WaLi’s parents both completed high school in their home country. Both WaLi and his brother were born in New York City. At 5 months old, WaLi moved to Fujian, China to live with his grandparents while his parents remained in the U.S. He returned to the U.S. at 4;0. Mrs. Li reported no family history of speech, language, or academic deficits.
Language Background and Use/ Academic Skills
WaLi resides in a Mandarin-English speaking home. His father speaks only Fujianese and Mandarin, and his mother speaks Mandarin and English. According to Mrs. Li, when WaLi was in China at 5 months old, he was exposed to only Fujianese as his grandparents and community only spoke Fujianese. In China, WaLi attended a monolingual Fujianese preschool from 3;0 to 4;0. Upon returning to the U.S. at 4;0, Mrs. Li reported that WaLi was only able to communicate with his father given that WaLi spoke only Fujianese, while she does not. Mrs. Li had to learn WaLi’s most frequently used words in Fujianese, while she “taught” WaLi Mandarin. Currently, WaLi does not speak and understand Fujianese due to language loss; WaLi speaks to his father in Mandarin, and code-switches between Mandarin and English with his mother and brother. However, Mrs. Li reported that WaLi is more dominant in English, and that WaLi is “forgetting words in Mandarin” and “slowly losing his Mandarin.”
WaLi was first exposed to English at 5;0 when he began kindergarten. He currently attends a 7th grade monolingual English class at a middle school in Chinatown from 8:20 a.m.- 2:30 p.m.. He attends English as a Second Language (ESL) three days a week; he has been attending ESL since first grade. WaLi also attends “extended school” from 3:30p.m.-6 p.m. everyday for extra-curricular activities (i.e., track, homework help, computer lessons). He spends his weekends in church and playing in the community, using both English and Mandarin to communicate with his friends.
Throughout the evaluation, the syntactic and morphologic differences observed in WaLi’s speech samples in English were omission of the past tense morpheme (e.g., “They sound really loud”), double negatives (e.g., “I don’t know nothing”) and omission of articles (e.g., “He was man”). However, these differences are typical of Asian speakers (Shipley & McAfee, 2009), and thus should not be a concern in WaLi’s expressive language development.
Acording to Mrs. Li, WaLi “is smart and does well in math”, but she is beginning to see him struggle with it. She also stated that WaLi is poor in his writing, hence his need for ESL. However, she stated that WaLi appears to be doing well in class because “most of his friends just came from China” and are struggling with English.
WaLi presents as an English dominant boy with emerging English skills, and language loss in Mandarin. He is a sequential bilingual as he was exposed to Fujianese and Mandarin since birth, and was exposed to English at 5;0 (Paradis, Genesee, & Crago, 2010).
Evaluation
Assessment Material
- Parent Interview
- Oral-Peripheral Examination
- Hearing Screening
- Speech Samples
- Narrative Assessment
- Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5 (CELF-5)
- Listening to Paragraphsubtest
- Dynamic Assessment
- Clinical Observation
- Informed Clinical Opinion
Behavior
WaLi presented as a friendly, enthusiastic boy. Prior to the evaluation, WaLi was observed eating lunch by himself. He greeted the clinicians as they walked towards him. Throughout the evaluation, WaLi passionately engaged in conversation exchanges with the clinicians, as demonstrated through his frequent jokes, questions, and comments.
Hearing
Based upon a recent full audiological evaluation, WaLi’s hearing is adequate bilaterally to develop age appropriate speech and language.
Oral Peripheral Assessment
An oral peripheral examination was conducted to assess the structure and function of WaLi’s oral mechanism of speech and non-speech tasks. The symmetry, size, shape, color, and function of WaLi’s oral mechanism were judged to be within normal limits. Dentition is unremarkable.
Voice, Resonance and Fluency
Voice, resonance, and fluency were assessed throughout the evaluation and were judged to be within normal limits for his age and gender.
WaLi’s articulation and phonology, receptive, expressive, and narrative skills were assessed in English and Mandarin. No standardized tests are appropriate for English-Mandarin bilingual children.
Articulation and Phonology
WaLi’s connected speech samples were elicited through structured conversation and narrative discourse. WaLi did not exhibit any articulation errors and phonological processes in English and Mandarin, and therefore judged to be within normal limits.
Receptive Language
WaLi demonstrated an understanding of other perspectives while discussing topics that interest him. For example, when the clinicians stated that “Manga is not a book, there are not enough words in it to be called a book,” WaLi quickly responded, “It is still called books! It is made out of books!” He also gave an example of a girl buying toy guns after the clinicians questioned, “can girls be violent?” When presented with a picture of a foot stuck between the subway doors and asked, “What would you do?” WaLi demonstrated problem-solving skills by responding, “Pull my leg out. Then I will ask for help to open the door.” When further asked in Mandarin, “Where would you find the police when you are underground?” WaLi replied in Mandarin “I will call the police that are sometimes nearby.” In addition, when discussing about the lessons he learned from his favorite movie, he stated, “We should not go to war because only peace can bring happiness to people.” When provided with the “Brush with Fire” paragraph on the Listening to Paragraph subtest of the CELF-5, WaLi had difficulty understanding some questions as he frequently asked for clarification; he was able to answer the questions when rephrased into non-academic language (e.g., “good timing” for “in the right place at the right time”) and/or Mandarin. WaLi also recalled meaningful predictable elements and made inferences from the paragraph (e.g., [How do you know the field trip is for science class?] “It’s talking about trees and the environment.”). Overall, WaLi demonstrated good receptive language skills in conversations, but presents with slight difficulty in understanding academic language in both languages, which may be due to his emerging English language skills.
Expressive Language
WaLi’s expressive language was assessed using conversation and narrative discourse (i.e., description of a scary moment, subway picture, and favorite movie). WaLi demonstrated the ability to organize, interpret, and integrate information and to express that information through the use of compound and complex sentences in both languages. During a story retell of his favorite movie, WaLi commented and justified his opinion in Mandarin that “Xiaoyan likes Yixiu. One day, Xiaoyan blushed and said, “I already have a boyfriend but I am not going to tell you.” In addition, when asked to retell the moment when he was scared in English, WaLi indicated that “When mom saw I was not there anymore, she went back down to look for me.” WaLi also demonstrated the ability to inform and persuade as he attempted to persuade the clinicians that detention is fun, “Because I stay there, I just do my work and I don’t have to go anywhere. When I am done with work, I just go and play the computer.”
WaLi’s limited use of complex clausal constructions was likely due to his difficulty with academic language.WaLi also demonstrated limited vocabulary in both languages, likely due to language loss in Mandarin (L1), and the process of acquiring English (L2). WaLi code switches to compensate for his limited vocabularyto express himself fully (e.g., “wo pa (I’m afraid) get in trouble,” and “my discipline teacher is so serious, she like fa pi chi (lose her temper).” WaLi also code switched for pragmatic effects such as “like a princess ah!” and “when they were fighting, and then zhe yang zhi lo!” whereby ah and lo are expressions used in Mandarin at the end of sentences to emphasize the importance of what is being say. WaLi’s high tendency to code switch may be due to the culture of code switching with his family and friends from church.
A test-teach-retest approach for dynamic assessment was performed to evaluate WaLi’s ability to learn and use new words appropriately. During the evaluation, WaLi often requested translations between Mandarin and English. He was able to recall and reproduce the words for ‘king,’ ‘cockroach’ and ‘enemy’ in Mandarin accurately to continue his narrations following clinicians’ models, indicating strong word learning ability.
A high-point analysis on WaLi’s personal narrative (i.e., most fearful moment) revealed WaLi’s ability to provide a coherent narrative using a variety of cohesive markers, nouns, and pronouns: introducer and/or abstract (“one time, when I was little, I got lost in the subway.”), orientation (“My mom went up the stairs, I was just sitting there because I was tired and she left.”), complicating action (“I started crying because I was lost. There’s a police there, so he said: “little kid, what happened to you?””), evaluation (“I was sitting there for the whole time and when my mom saw I was not there anymore, she went back down to look for me.”), resolution (“and then my mom came back down…”), and coda (“…and everything was fine.”). Although WaLi was observed to use some adjectives and verbs, he presents with limited range and variety of words in both languages.
Overall, WaLi’s expressive language is characterized by good social language but slight difficulty in academic language as evidenced by his limited vocabulary. This difficulty is likely due to the greater exposure to social uses of language whereas exposure to academic language is limited to school (Paradis et al., 2010); the deficits in Mandarin are likely due to language loss.
Summary and Recommendations
A speech and language assessment was performed in English and Mandarin to assess WaLi’s articulation, receptive and expressive skills in both languages. Mrs. Li confirmed that WaLi’s performance was typical of how he normally communicates. The assessment revealed that WaLi does not present with a language disorder, but a language difference influenced by second language acquisition. He exhibited good social language but limited academic language receptively and expressively in both languages, as evidenced by limited range and variety of vocabulary usage and complex clausal constructions. The deficits are likely due to different amounts of exposure to each language, which could affect his performance in school. In addition, the dynamic assessment revealed no persistent language learning difficulties. WaLi’s assessment results were discussed with Mrs. Li, and she concurred with the conclusion that WaLi does not present with a language disorder.
The following are recommendations to be considered based on results of the evaluation:
- Create language-rich environments and opportunities in both Mandarin and English.
- Participate in Response to Intervention for academic language support.
References
Paradis, J., Genesee, F. &. Crago, M. (2010). Dual Language Development and Disorders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning (2nd Ed.)Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Shipley, K.G. & McAfee, J.G. (2009). Assessment in speech-language pathology: a resource manual (4th ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
