Development of Vocabulary and Grammar in Bilingual Children with Developmental Disorder

许多教育工作者和临床医生认为双语对自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的语言发展有负面影响。然而，很少有研究调查双语是否以及如何影响自闭症儿童的语言发展。在这项初步研究中，我们主要关注日英双语儿童：典型发育儿童（TD）和ASD儿童。探讨高功能日英双语儿童ASD （BLASD）在两种语言中的词汇和语法能力，并与正常发展的日英双语儿童（BLTD）进行比较。BLASD在日语接受性词汇方面的能力高于BLASD，而BLASD在英语接受性和表达性词汇方面的能力高于BLASD。这些结果表明，词汇发展可能更强烈地受到儿童成长环境中所使用的语言的影响。各组之间在英语接受性语法方面没有发现差异。相比之下，日语的接受性语法，BLASD表现出与BLTD不同的发展模式。

Many educators and clinicians believe that bilingualism has a negative influence on language development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, there have been few studies conducted to examine if and how bilingualism affects the language development of children with ASD. In this preliminary study, we focused on Japanese-English bilingual children: typically developing children (TD) and children with ASD. To explore vocabulary and grammatical abilities of high functioning Japanese-English bilingual children with ASD (BLASD) in both languages and to compare results with those of typically developing Japanese-English bilingual children (BLTD). BLASD demonstrated higher abilities in Japanese receptive vocabulary than BLTD, while BLTD showed higher abilities in English receptive and expressive vocabulary than BLASD. These results indicate the possibility that vocabulary development is influenced more strongly by the language spoken in the community in which children grow up. No difference was found among groups for English receptive grammar. By contrast, for Japanese receptive grammar, BLASD demonstrated a developmental pattern which was different from the pattern demonstrated by BLTD.