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Analyzing language samples of Spanish–English bilingual children for the automated prediction of language dominance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2010

T. SOLORIO ,
M. SHERMAN ,
Y. LIU ,
L. M. BEDORE ,
E. D. PEÑA  and
A. IGLESIAS
T. SOLORIO
Affiliation:
Department of Computer and Information Sciences, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1300 University Boulevard, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA e-mail: solorio@cis.uab.edu
M. SHERMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Rd., Richardson, TX 75080, USA e-mail: mesh@hlt.utdallas.edu, yangl@hlt.utdallas.edu
Y. LIU
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Rd., Richardson, TX 75080, USA e-mail: mesh@hlt.utdallas.edu, yangl@hlt.utdallas.edu
L. M. BEDORE
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A1100, Austin, TX 78712-0114, USA e-mail: lbedore@mail.utexas.edu, lizp@mail.utexas.edu
E. D. PEÑA
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A1100, Austin, TX 78712-0114, USA e-mail: lbedore@mail.utexas.edu, lizp@mail.utexas.edu
A. IGLESIAS
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, 3307 N. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19140, USA e-mail: iglesias@temple.edu
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Abstract

In this work we study how features typically used in natural language processing tasks, together with measures from syntactic complexity, can be adapted to the problem of developing language profiles of bilingual children. Our experiments show that these features can provide high discriminative value for predicting language dominance from story retells in a Spanish–English bilingual population of children. Moreover, some of our proposed features are even more powerful than measures commonly used by clinical researchers and practitioners for analyzing spontaneous language samples of children. This study shows that the field of natural language processing has the potential to make significant contributions to communication disorders and related areas.

Type
Articles
Information
Natural Language Engineering , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 367 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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