Bilingual children referred for psychiatric services: associations of language disorders, language skills, and psychopathology.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate (1) the prevalence of language deficits and disorders and (2) the relationship of bilingual language skills and psychopathology, in Spanish-English bilingual children referred for child and adolescent psychiatry services.

METHOD: Bilingual language skills, emotional/behavioral problems, sociodemographics, immigration variables, and nonverbal IQ were studied in 50 consecutively referred children.

RESULTS

Estimated prevalence was high for language deficits (48%) and disorders (41%), with most cases (>79%) being of the mixed receptive-expressive type. In children with clinically significant emotional/behavioral problems, bilingual language skills were strongly and inversely correlated with problem scores, particularly global problems (r = -0.67, p < .001); social, thought, and attention problems (r > or = -0.54; p < .004); delinquency (r = -0.66, p < .001); and aggression (r = -0.52, p < .01). These correlations remained significant after IQ adjustment.

CONCLUSIONS

Prior findings from monolingual children were confirmed in this bilingual sample, namely (1) the high prevalence of mixed receptive-expressive and other language disorders and delays and (2) the close tie between poor language skills and emotional/behavioral problems. The data strongly suggest the clinical importance and feasibility of language assessment and the significance of receptive problems in bilingual children referred for psychiatric services. A safe approach is to fully assess language skills, rather than misattributing these children's language delays to normal bilingual acquisition processes.