SEMANTIC VERBAL FLUENCY OF THE BILINGUAL CHILDREN WITH MILD INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

Abstract

Semantic verbal fluency test is reliable instrument for detection of various kinds of neuropsychological deficits. Participants’ attainments in this test are influenced by array of socio-cultural factors. The occurrence of “twofold semilingualism” belongs to these cultural factors.
The objective of this research is to determine differences between monolingual and bilingual children with mild mental retardation in semantic verbal fluency test.
The sample consisted of 90 participants with mild mental retardation, of both sexes, aged from 12 to 15. The whole sample was divided into three subsets: 30 monolingual children (M1), who speak only Serbian, 30 monolingual Roma children who do not speak Romany (M2) and 30 bilingual Roma children who speak both, Romany and Serbian language (B).
It was found that both groups of monolingual children have better performances in semantic fluency tasks than bilingual children.