Identification of specific language impairment in bilingual children: I. Assessment in English.

PURPOSE: This study was designed to derive cut scores for English testing for use in identifying specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual children who were learning English as a second language.
METHOD: In a 1-gate design, 167 children received comprehensive language assessments in English and Spanish during their first-grade year. The reference standard was identification by a team of expert bilingual speech-language pathologists. Receiver operating curve (ROC) analyses were used to identify the optimal prediction model for SLI.
RESULTS: The original, English EpiSLI criteria (Tomblin, Records, & Zhang, 1996) yielded a sensitivity of .95 and a specificity of .45 (LR+ = 1.73, LR- = 0.11, and AUC = .79) for our bilinguals. Revised cutoff scores yielded a sensitivity of .86 and a specificity of .68 (LR+ = 2.67, LR- = 0.21, and AUC = .77). An optimal prediction model yielded a sensitivity of .81 and a specificity of .81 (LR+ = 4.37, LR- = 0.23 and AUC = .85).
CONCLUSION: The results of English testing could be used to make a reasonably accurate diagnostic decision for bilingual children who had attended public school for at least 1 year and were using English at least 30% of the time.