Language impairment in Swedish bilingual children: a comparison between bilingual and monolingual children in Malmö.
In this study two groups of children were compared, 192 bilingual and 246 monolingual, referred over a 12-mo period to University Hospital in Malmö for suspected language impairment. Compared with monolingual children, bilingual children ran a significantly lower risk (RR = 0.76, p < 0.0001) of being referred by a child health centre, and a significantly higher risk (RR= 1.54, p < 0.0103) of being referred after 5 y of age. In the bilingual group there was also a significantly higher risk of parental refusal of assessment (RR = 2.35, p < 0.0016) and of the children being diagnosed with a severe language impairment (RR = 1.87, p < 0.0009). The risk for bilingual children with severe language impairment being discharged owing to non-attendance was high (RR = 6.20, p < 0.0002) compared to monolingual children. The risk increased with severity of language impairment.


CONCLUSIONS
Bilingual children displayed a higher risk of a diagnosis of severe language impairment and of being discharged for non-attendance. The problem of low compliance among bilingual parents, despite strong indications of parental distress, must be addressed.
Salameh
E K
EK
Department of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, Lund University Hospital, Sweden. Eva-Kristina.Salameh@logopedi.lu.se
Nettelbladt
U
U
Håkansson
G
G
Gullberg
B
B
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D013548:Sweden