Blackwell Reference Online

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This chapter deals with two types of language impairment, specific language impairment (SLI) in children and aphasia in adults. Bilingual language impairment in children has only recently been studied in some depth. The study of bilingual cases of aphasia has a longer history. In this chapter, the focus is on bilingual SLI; a brief discussion of bilingual aphasia serves comparative and contrastive purposes. For obvious reasons, bilingualism has to be placed in different contexts in developmental and acquired disorders. Important differences concern the processes of language acquisition (or learning) relative to the onset of disorder, and the nature of bilingualism. Bilingual language development may be either simultaneous or successive. In simultaneous bilingualism, the two languages are learned from the start. In characteristic cases of successive (or sequential) bilingualism, the child begins to grow up monolingual, but encounters a second language in kindergarten or primary school. SLI in bilingual children affects developing language systems, whether a child is exposed to two (or more) languages simultaneously, or a second language is introduced at some time during early childhood.Adult-acquired aphasia, on the other hand, affects established language systems. While an aphasic bilingual may have acquired two (or more) languages either simultaneously or successively, by the time ... log in or subscribe to read full text