Considerations on phonological development and assessment of phonological disorders in Brazilian children in bilingual education:

an exploratory literature review

Resumo

Despite the increase in the number of Portuguese/English bilingual schools in Brazil, regulatory policies on the number of hours of instruction in each language are still non-existent. However, considering that children may be introduced to this environment prior to developing complete phonological awareness of the sounds of their first language, it is of relevance to analyse the consequences of bilingual education for phonologically atypical children, and whether it negatively affects the clinical assessment of typically developing children in terms of over-identification. This exploratory literature review aimed to analyse the extent to which research on the phonological development in children attending Portuguese/English bilingual schools in Brazil has advanced, and whether it addresses the issue of (mis)diagnosis. Six publications, retrieved from the Periódicos Capes portal, were deemed (relatively) relevant to this objective. The findings indicate that studies on bilingual education in Brazil are mainly concerned with the analysis of phonological awareness and processing in order to assess reading and writing skills. Methodological aspects, e.g. the exclusion of atypically developing children, show that research on bilingualism in the Brazilian context has not advanced to the same extent as in international studies.