SPEECH DISORDER IN PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN EXPOSED TO CANTONESE AND ENGLISH

Speech disorder in monolingual Cantonese- or English-speaking children has been well described in the literature. There appear to be no repo rts, however, that describe speech-disordered children who have been e xposed to both languages. Here we report on the error patterns of two preschool speech-disordered children who were learning two languages. Both children's first language was Cantonese, but they were also expos ed to English through the media and child care. Their disorders were o f unknown aetiology. The following questions were asked of the data: ( a) Do bilingual children, suspected of having speech problems, make er rors in Cantonese and English that reflect delay or disorder when comp ared with normative data on monolingual speech development in each lan guage? (b) How does the children's speech differ from other bilingual children from the same language learning background? (c) Are the child ren's speech difficulties apparent in both languages? (d) Is the patte rn of errors the same in both languages or do language-specific proces ses operate? The results bear on theories of acquisition, disorder and bilingualism; they also have clinical implications for speech-languag e pathologists whose caseloads include bilingual preschool children.