A comparison between bilingualism and developmental language disorder.

Abstract

The present work is structured into three parts. The first part presents some definitions of language and language acquisition in case of typical development. In the second part bilingualism and specific language impairment are defined and discussed. The third part will be a comparison between the syntactic competence of bilingual children and children with specific language impairment. Particular attention will be given to the difficulties encountered in the use of clitic pronouns and in the repetition of non-words. A comparison between studies that analysed the use of these structures will be provided. The aim is to highlight the difficulties that bilinguals and people affected by Specific Language Impairment encounter when they have to produce and/or comprehend clitic pronouns and repeat non-words.