This model evaluation is of a simultaneous bilingual English/ Hebrew boy with typically developing language skills. However, he is experiencing some language loss in the first language (Hebrew) due to lack of exposure and practice now that he has entered a monolingual English speaking kindergarten.
I. Background Information:
L is a 6;4 year old bilingual English-Hebrew speaking male residing in Great Neck, New York. He attends an English speaking elementary school in a high quality school district.
L’s mother served as the primary informant throughout the evaluation. L is right handed and possesses good coordination for a child of his age. All developmental and speech-language milestones were reported to be within normal limits.
L’s mother and father were born in Israel and immigrated to the United States with their family in 1999 due to financial turmoil at that time. When inquired about education level, L’s mother stated that she completed high school, but L’s father had not. L’s mother recently completed vocational coursework and now works as an Esthetician and L’s father is currently in real estate. They are of upper-middle class socioeconomic status. L’s parents learned English immediately upon their arrival to the United States and reportedly, “learned the language quickly”. They are able to write and read with high proficiency in both Hebrew and English. Reportedly, L’s parents have embraced and assimilated to American culture, but feel it is also important to teach and preserve Israeli culture within their home and for their children.
Per informant, there is no family history of academic or speech and language deficits. L’s mother describes L’s speech and language skills as on par with his siblings at that age and with peers in his community. She explained that L is very mature for his age, which she attributes to him having older siblings. L’s mother also stated that he is extremely curious and social, as he loves to initiate conversation with others, ask questions, and write his own stories. The following example of a recent insightful statement L provided when witnessing his siblings in an argument was, “words have power”. According to L’s mother, aside from his older sister recently moving out of the house, there have been no other significant changes within the family structure. Currently L’s family expresses no remarkable concerns for his speech and language development.
II. Language Background and Use:
According to parental report, L has had significant exposure to both Hebrew and English since birth, suggesting he is a simultaneous bilingual. L speaks in the Standard American English dialect as well as a Sephardic dialect of Hebrew. According to his parents, L predominantly spoke Hebrew as a toddler, as he was enrolled in a Pre-K where Hebrew was the dominant language used. After transitioning to a monolingual English speaking elementary school, his parents observed that L started to demonstrate some Hebrew language loss, as he began to respond primarily in English. Per mother report, L is currently English dominant with emergent skills in Hebrew. However, L began attending Hebrew School this past September, where he now receives academic exposure to Hebrew biweekly. Based on familial observation, L has started using Hebrew more frequently since this time, demonstrating progress within the past 6 months.
In the home setting, L and his family use both languages and consistently code-switch between them. Clinicians also observed a variety of conversational exchanges within L’s home environment, demonstrating the familial fluidity of code switching. For example:
M: “מחר snack לך לשים יחולה לא אניאז. אתד מאשו תכנה, one snack.” (i.e, “Then I can’t give you a snack tomorrow. Pick one snack, one snack”)
L: “רוצהאני two!” (i.e. “I want two!”)
It was also mentioned that L and his family visit Israel on a yearly basis and upon returning, L’s Hebrew improves.
L is a simultaneous bilingual in English and Hebrew with significant exposure to code switching. Based upon clinical observation, L presents with stronger skills in English and emergent skills in Hebrew.
III. Evaluation
Hearing Status: According to L’s mother, his hearing was tested at school and was judged to be within normal limits.
Oral Peripheral Assessment: An oral peripheral exam was conducted in order to assess the structure and function of the oral mechanism for speech and non-speech tasks. Oromotor structures appeared to be within normal limits for shape, size, symmetry, color, and function.
Behavior and Play: L is a bright, social, and inquisitive young boy. His mother confirmed this by stating, “He has a lot of friends. Everybody loves him”. He maintained conversation topics appropriately and pragmatic skills were judged to be at L’s age level expectancies. He continuously initiated conversation with the clinician and enjoyed sharing details about his favorite hobbies and school activities. L was easily motivated by the tasks presented and he demonstrated a high level of concentration and focus throughout the assessment.
Articulation and Phonology: L’s overall speech intelligibility was assessed informally through elicitation of a speech sample. L’s speech was assessed at the one word and conversational level in English and Hebrew. L presented with no phonological processes and was judged to be intelligible to both familiar and unfamiliar listeners. Clinician observation in tandem with parent report demonstrates that L has no difficulty in pronouncing sounds in either language.
Expressive Language:
L’s expressive language skills were assessed through various narratives. The clinician engaged L in a conversation about his favorite toy the “rainbow loom”. Throughout narrative assessment, L was able to produce complex sentences as well as connect independent and dependent clauses and demonstrate sound problem solving skills. For example, L responded to clinician by saying:
“I’ll teach you how to make one and after that you can make one, because once you know how to make one you can make one for me too, since I made one for you. First you have to figure out your size because depending on your size you’re going to leave more space open. My size is when you leave four spaces open. Your size is going to be big, so I’m going to need a lot of it.”
L also demonstrated ability to understand cause and effect and produce analogies using descriptive language:
“(C: Which one’s your favorite?)This regular bracelet it’s my favorite because like even though it’s regular its glow in the dark white so you turn off the lights and it glows!” (C: Why is this one called Jelly?) “Yeah! It’s smooth and it looks like kind of a little wet like jelly and that’s why it’s called jelly”.
An area of strength for L was his ability to organize, interpret and integrate information through oral expression. When asked by the clinician to tell her about his favorite movie (i.e., The Internship), he stated the following:
“It’s about these two people, who their job it was like closed because it was a watch store.” (C: Why did the store close?) “Because everything was electronic now so they didn’t need watches because they just look at their phone. This guy named Bill went to Google and then they have to do tests and they have to pass if they want to get a job.” (C: What happens if they pass and what happens if they fail?) “If they pass they get a job at Google. If they don’t they go home and they’ll try again next year.” (C: What kind of work do people do at Google?) “At Google it’s like you make new stuff for other people. So it’s like what they want invented, like a scientist who invents stuff.”
Throughout this example L demonstrates higher-level cognitive thinking through the ability to synthesize information and make inferences. He is able to convey the central message of the movie in a detailed manner. L also demonstrates strong receptive skills as he was able to follow a line of questioning and respond appropriately to high level questions while using low frequency vocabulary words in a meaningful way (e.g., internship, hire, invented).
L also demonstrated age appropriate narrative skills through his retell of Simon’s Cat video,“Cat-Man-Do”.
“It was about this cat who wanted attention because this guy was sleeping so you know what he did?” (C: What?) “He like he got this blanket he got the blanket and he flicked it on him he wanted attention so he pulled his ear and he pulled his eye like that and flicked it back. Then he hit him with a bat so hard he got a black eye. Oh my god. That was so funny. Oh my god. Can we watch it again?” (C: Yes, but what happened after the cat hit the man with the bat?) “Umm then the man woke up and umm the cat pretended he was sleeping. So funny.” (C: How did the cat feel?) “He was annoyed because he was hungry and the man wouldn’t wake up”.
This shows L’s ability to retell stories and sequence events with key story grammar elements. L also infers information from subtle actions (e.g., he knew that the cat pointing to his mouth meant that the cat was hungry). Additionally, L is able to interpret feelings and elements that appeal to the senses (e.g., how the cat felt, being hit with the bat “so hard”), demonstrating high narrative skill.
Per parent report, L’s expressive Hebrew skills are used for basic colloquial conversation (i.e., to respond to greetings, answer simple “Wh” questions) and to label items within his environment via concrete vocabulary. However, throughout the evaluation, minimal verbal expression in Hebrew was observed. Based on previous report and skill level in Hebrew, L’s current confidence with the English language in tandem with his recent period of language loss, is likely to influence his expressive skills in Hebrew. This was frequently observed when the clinician probed L to speak in Hebrew:
C: ?קיראיפה(i.e, Where’s green?)
L: Green is here.
C: Yes. Do you know the colors in Hebrew too? Can you tell me them?
L: Maybe like two.
C: Tell me.
L: …שׁחשׁח ,זָהָב ,סָגוֹל ,כָּחוֹל. (i.e., Blue, purple, gold, bl…)
C: ?שָׁחוֹר (i.e, Black?)
L: שָׁחוֹר כָּן (i.e., Yes, black)
According to L’s mother, this was confirmed to be typical behavior and that L often benefits from encouragement or prompts to speak in Hebrew. When prompted by the clinician to provide more complex language, L would only respond in English:
C: ?חושבאתה מה !מסכן איזה. נעלזה?זה מה יודע אתה (i.e., Do you know what that is? It’s a shoe! Poor guy, how funny! What do you think?)
L: I think it’s a shoe or a metal shoe because um maybe it’s really heavy.
Receptive Language:
Within the receptive evaluation, L demonstrated skills appropriate for his age evidenced by his ability to follow multi-step commands and understand grade level text.
When analyzing L’s school portfolio, L completed assignments and various worksheets with high accuracy, including manipulation of numbers, following 3-4 step directions, and generating thoughts and ideas in the written modality. Per informant, L is also able to follow multi-step commands in Hebrew both at home and while at Hebrew school. L’s ability to follow commands in English and Hebrew demonstrates his strong comprehension of both languages.
L’s ability to understand Hebrew was also demonstrated within a conversation between him and his mother.
M: ?למה ידועאתאעכשולא (i.e, No now, you need to start your homework now. You know why?)
L: Why?
M:!תרא קדימה אז הים שיעורים שתי לך יש לעשות עברית ספר בית שלשיעורים לך יש (i.e, Because you also have homework from school and Hebrew school homework too. You have two homework assignments today!)
L: Please, I don’t want to now!
M: .שעורים ועשה מחשיב שאתה Justineל תרא (i.e, Show Justine you can pay attention and do your homework.)
L sits and starts his homework.
L: ליאמ מחשיב שאתה מאמי תודה (i.e, Thank you baby, for listening L)
L’s appropriate responses in English, initial protests, as well as his eventual compliance demonstrates his strong receptive skills in Hebrew.
Receptive skills in English were evaluated using the Understanding Spoken Paragraphs Subtest of the CELF-5. After listening to short paragraphs aloud, L was able to recall basic information, make meaningful predictions and infer information about emotions, actions, and states of being. For example, L stated:
“First of all he was excited because he was actually going to a bigger grade and he was also afraid because what if his new teacher was not nice and he didn’t have any new friends.”
Demonstrating theory of mind and an understanding of multiple perspectives and the main idea of the story.
Summary and Recommendations:
L presents as a typically developing 6; 4 year-old bilingual English-Hebrew speaking male. According to L’s mother, who proved to be a reliable informant, L’s performance throughout the assessment was representative of his typical language behavior. L presents as English dominant with emerging skills in Hebrew. In alignment with parental report, L demonstrates stronger receptive skills than expressive language skills in Hebrew. As L’s exposure to academic Hebrew increases through attending Hebrew school his Hebrew language skills are expected to improve. Furthermore, the examples above demonstrate that L’s English language skills align with the common core curriculum, which will enable current and future academic success. Since L presents with age appropriate language skills, there are no concerns for his speech and language acquisition at this time.
References:
Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004).
NYSED (1990). Guidelines for Services to Students with LEP and Special Needs in New York State. http://www.p12.nysed.gov/biling/docs/GuidelinesforServicestoStudentswithLEPandSpEdN eedsinNYS1990.pdf
Special thanks to Justine Allen and Elini Gkikas!
