Predictors of Reading Development Among School-Age Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Scoping Review.

PURPOSE: Systematic reviews of bilingual children's reading development are very limited, and none of which solely focus on predictors of reading difficulties among those with developmental language disorder (DLD). The present scoping review fills an important need by analyzing the recent research literature on the reading outcomes of bilingual children with DLD. Specifically, this study aims to identify predictors of reading difficulties among bilingual children with DLD to improve early identification.

METHOD: The search parameters used in this scoping review included peer-reviewed journal articles written in English from 2000 to 2022 in order to synthesize the most recent empirical work, a focus on early childhood through early adolescent (pre-K to eighth grade) bilinguals with DLD, and research designs that included case study, descriptive, cross-sectional, quasi-experimental, longitudinal, and qualitative methods.

RESULTS: The present review yielded nine articles, which all examined the predictive validity of either a measure or task with the ultimate goal of improving early identification of reading difficulties. Significant predictors of reading difficulties, such as rapid naming and blending in first language (L1), were found to aid in identifying bilingual children who have DLD.

CONCLUSIONS: To conclude, this review demonstrates that this is a highly under-researched topic. To have ended up including only nine articles that fit the criteria of our search reveals a large gap in the research and a limitation of this review.