A Framework for Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition Tests: Effects of Bilingualism and Socioeconomic Status on Children's Performance.

Purpose: As a recognized indicator of language impairment, nonword repetition has unique potential for distinguishing language impairment from difficulties due to limited experience and knowledge of a language. This study focused on a new Crosslinguistic Nonword Repetition framework, comprising 3 tests that vary the phonological characteristics of nonwords, in the quest for an assessment that minimizes effects of language experience and knowledge and thereby maximizes potential for assessing children with diverse linguistic experience.

Method: The English version of the new framework was administered, with a test of receptive vocabulary, to 4- to 7-year-old monolingual and bilingual children with typical development (n = 21 per group) from neighborhoods with midhigh and low socioeconomic status (SES).

Results: Receptive vocabulary was affected by both bilingualism and neighborhood SES. In contrast, no effects of bilingualism or neighborhood SES were found on 2 of our nonword repetition tests, whereas the most language-specific test yielded a borderline effect of neighborhood SES but no effect of bilingualism.

Conclusions: The findings support the potential of the new tests for assessing children regardless of lingual or socioeconomic background. They also highlight the importance of considering the characteristics of nonword targets and investigating the compound influence of bilingualism and SES on different language assessments.