Cross-linguistic interactions from second language to first language as the result of individualized narrative language intervention with children with and without language impairment

This study investigated the extent to which results of English narrative intervention interacted cross-linguistically with Spanish for 73 bilingual children. We employed a quasi-experimental design, using matched-pairs random assignment for children with typically developing language and a nonrandom block design for children with language impairment. At pretest and posttest we elicited three different English and Spanish narrative retells. We conducted two 25-min, individualized narrative intervention sessions in English with the treatment group, focusing on causal subordination and story grammar. The results indicated that the English narrative intervention was efficacious for both causal subordination and story grammar. They also indicated that the typically developing children had significantly greater cross-linguistic transfer of causal subordination and story grammar than did the children with language impairment.