Welcome to the LITMUS Sentence Repetition website
This website provides information about the LITMUS Sentence Repetition tasks. These tasks were created initially as part of the COST Action IS0804 'Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment' funded by the EU RTD Framework Programme.
After the end of the funding period, the tasks were further developed and additional tasks were created in more languages.
About
Sentence repetition tasks have been shown to be very sensitive and specific in identifying children with language impairment. Most language assessments have been developed for monolingual children. The lack of multilingual assessments motivated the COST Action IS0804 to develop Sentence Repetition tasks across a large number of languages that can be used with multilingual children. These are the LITMUS Sentence Repetition tasks.
The tasks were constructed using a set of principles to provide comparable results across languages. This allows multilingual children to be assessed in all languages they speak. Difficulties in more than one language would strongly indicate language delay or impairment; typical performance in the dominant language(s) and difficulties in their non-dominant language(s) would indicate low proficiency in that language but no language impairment. More details about the development of these tasks can be found in the following publication and in the list of publications below:
Marinis, T., & Armon-Lotem, S. (2015). Sentence Repetition. In: Armon-Lotem, S., de Jong, J. & Meir, N. (Eds.). Methods for assessing multilingual children: disentangling bilingualism from Language Impairment. Multilingual Matters.
This web-site provides a list of the LITMUS Sentence Repetition tasks and the contact details of the researchers who worked on the development of these tasks. The web-site includes also a list of publications from studies that used these tasks.
If you are interested in using any of these tasks, please contact the relevant researchers.
LITMUS Sentence Repetition Tasks per language
Albanian
Enkeleida Kapia (Academy of Albanian Studies, Albania & Ludwig Maximilian Universität, Germany) website
Arabic Lebanese
Laurie Tuller (University of Tours, France) website
Racha Zebib (University of Tours, France)
Philippe Prévost (University of Tours, France)
Lina Choueiri (American University of Beirut)
Arabic Palestinian
Sharon Armon-Lotem (Bar Ilan University) website
Elinor Saigh-Haddad (Bar Ilan University)
Sahar Haj Yahye, Amna Halabi
Arabic Saudi
Mada Al Hasan (University of Reading)
Theodoros Marinis (University of Konstanz & University of Reading)
Arabic Syrian
Johanne Paradis (University of Alberta) website
Redab Al Janaideh (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto)
Evangelia Daskalaki (University of Alberta)
Adriana Soto-Corominas (University of Alberta)
Catalan
Anna Gavarró (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) website
Croatian
Gordana Hržica (University of Zagreb, Department of Speech and Language Pathology) website
Jelena Kuvač Kraljević (University of Zagreb, Department of Speech and Language Pathology)
Lana Kologranić (SUVAG Polyclinic)
Dutch
Elma Blom (Utrecht University, Department of Special Education: Cognitive and Motor Disabilities, Faculty of Social Sciences) website
Jan de Jong (University of Bergen, Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology) website
English
Theodoros Marinis (University of Konstanz & University of Reading) website
Shula Chiat (City University London)
Sharon Armon-Lotem (Bar Ilan University)
Farsi
Mariam Komeili (University of Reading)
Parvaneh Tavakoli (University of Reading)
Theodoros Marinis (University of Konstanz & University of Reading)
Yalda Kazemi (Isfahan University)
French
Philippe Prévost (University of Tours, France) website
Laurie Tuller (University of Tours, France)
Racha Zebib (University of Tours, France)
Gaelic
Vicky Chondrogianni (University of Edinburgh) website
Morna Butcher (University of Edinburgh)
Maria Garrafffa (Heriot-Watt University)
German
Cornelia Hamann (University of Oldenburg) website
Lina Abed Ibrahim (University of Oldenburg) website
Solveig Chilla (University of Flensburg)
Esther Ruigendijk (University of Oldenburg)
Greek Cypriot
Kleanthes K, Grohmann (University of Cyprus) website
Maria Kambanaros (Cyprus University of Technology)
Greek Standard
Vicky Chondrogianni (University of Edinburgh) website
Ianthi Tsimpli (University of Cambridge) website
Maria Andreou (University of Cologne)
Hebrew
Sharon Armon-Lotem (Bar Ilan University) website
Natalia Meir (Bar Ilan University)
Carmit Altman (Bar Ilan University)
Irish
Stanislava Antonijevic (National University of Ireland Galway) website
Ruth Durham (Health Service Executive Longford-Westmeath, Ireland)
Ide Ni Chonghaile (Health Service Executive West, Ireland)
Italian
Lithuanian
Eglė Krivickaitė-Leišienė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) website
Ineta Dabašinskienė (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania)
Malay
Rogayah Razak (Speech Science Program, Centre of Rehabilitation & Special Needs, Faculty of Health Science, UKM) website
Norsofiah Abu Bakar (Malay language Program, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia)
Lim Hui Woan (Speech Science Program, Centre of Rehabilitation & Special Needs, Faculty of Health Science, UKM)
Maltese (created before the LITMUS)
Helen Grech (University of Malta, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Communication Therapy) website
Norwegian
Jan de Jong (University of Bergen, Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology) website
Polish
Natalia Banasik-Jemielniak (Maria Grzegorzewska University) website
Ewa Haman (University of Warsaw)
Magdalena Smoczyńska (Maria
Curie-Skłodowska University)
Portuguese
Maria Lobo (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) website
Liliana Correia (Universidade do Minho)
Russian
Natalia Meir (Bar-Ilan University) website
Sharon Armon-Lotem (Bar-Ilan University)
Spanish
Silvina Montrul (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) website
Begoña Arechabaleta (University of Chicago)
Turkish
Seyhun TOPBAŞ (Istanbul Medipol University School of Health Sciences) website
Welsh
Vicky Chondrogianni (University of Edinburgh) website
Peredur Davies (Bangor University)
Enlii Thomas (Bangor University)
Publications using the LITMUS Sentence Repetition tasks
Catalan task
French task
Chilla, S., Hamann, C., Prévost, P., Abed Ibrahim, L., Ferré, S., dos Santos, C., Zebib, R. & Tuller, L. (in press). The influence of different first languages on L2 LITMUS-NWR and L2 LITMUS-SR in French and German: a crosslinguistic approach. In: S. Armon-Lotem & K. Grohman (eds.). LITMUS in Action: Comparative Studies across Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Silleresi S., Tuller L., Delage H., Durrleman S., Bonnet-Brilhault F., Malvy J., & Prévost P. (2018). Sentence repetition and language impairment in French-speaking children with ASD. In Gavarro A. (ed.). On the acquisition of the syntax of Romance (pp. 235-258). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Tuller, L., Hamann, C., Prévost, P., Chilla, S., Ferré, S., dos Santos, C., Zebib, R., Abed Ibrahim, L. (2018). Identifying language impairment in bilingual children in France and in Germany. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 53(4), 888-904.
German task
Abed Ibrahim, Lina, and Cornelia Hamann (2017): "Bilingual Arabic-German & Turkish-German children with and without specific language impairment: Comparing performance in sentence and nonword repetition tasks." M. LaMendola and J. Scott (Hg.): Proceedings of BUCLD 41, Somerville: Cascadilla Press, 1-17.
Abed Ibrahim, Lina, Lein, Tatjana, Rothweiler, Monika and Cornelia Hamann. (to appear). SLI in Bilinguals: Comparing LITMUS-Tasks to a Standardized Test with Bilingual Norms. In: dos Santos. Proceedings of Bisli 2015.
Chilla, Solveig, Hamann, Cornelia, Prévost, Phillipe, Abed Ibrahim, Lina, Ferré, Sandrine, dos Santos, Christophe, Zebib, Racha & Tuller, Laurice (to appear). The influence of different first languages on L2 LITMUS-NWR and L2 LITMUS-SRT in French and German: a crosslinguistic approach. In : Kleanthes Grohmann & Sharon Armon-Lotem (eds.), LITMUS in Action: Comparative Studies across Europe, Trends in Language Acquisition Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hamann, Cornelia, Abed Ibrahim, Lina, S. Chilla, N. Gagarina (2017): "Syntactic complexity and bilingualism: how (a)typical bilinguals deal with complex structures." E. Di Domenico (Hg.): Complexity in Acquisition, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 142-178.
Hamann, C. and Abed Ibrahim, L., (2017): Methods for identifying specific language impairment in bilingual populations in Germany. Frontiers in Communication 2: 16.
Hamann, C., Abed Ibrahim, L. and D. Öwerdieck (2018): Identifying specific language impairment across different bilingual populations: German Sentence Repetition Task. In Anne B. Bertolini and Maxwell J. Kaplan (eds): Proceedings of the 42nd annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 1-14. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Hamann, C. , S. Chilla and L. Abed Ibrahim (to appear). Language assessment tools for Arabic speaking refugee children. Submitted to a special issue of Applied Psycholinguistics.
Lein, Tatjana, Hamann, Cornelia, Rothweiler, Monika, Abed Ibrahim, Lina, Solveig Chilla and Hilal San (2015): SLI in Bilinguals: Testing Complex Syntax and Semantics in German, In: Proceedings of Gasla 2015, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, 124-135.
Tuller, L., C. Hamann, S. Chilla, S. Ferré, E. Morin, P. Prévost, C. dos Santos, L. Abed Ibrahim and R. Zebib (2018). Identifying language impairment in bilingual children in France and in Germany. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, online preview, 1-17.
Hebrew task
Irish SR task
Antonijevic, S., Durham, R., & Ní Chonghaile, Í. (2017). Language performance of sequential bilinguals on an Irish and English sentence repetition task. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 7, 3-4, 359-393.
Irish English SR task
Lebanese Arabic task
Saad, S. & Henry, G. (in press). L’épreuve Répétition de phrases : LITMUS-SR-Liban. In Zebib, R., Prévost, P., Tuller, L. & Henry, G. (Eds), Plurilinguisme et Troubles Spécifiques du Langage au Liban. Beyrouth: Presses universitaires de l’Université Saint-Joseph.
Malay task
Masters Project – Sentence Repetition and Non-Word Repetition among bilingual (Malay-English) Malay children (Zurr Hanis Hamim), Rogayah A Razak & Badrulzaman Abd Hamid (supervisors).
Masters Project – Nonword Repetition (NWR) & Sentence repetition (SR) as clinical markers for school aged children with Specific Language Impairment (Rahimah Yunus), Yazmin Ahmad Rusli & Rogayah A Razak (supervisors).
Final Year Project – Sentence repetition task among multilingual children (Mandarin-English-Malay). (Bryan Cho) Rogayah A Razak (supervisor).
Norwegian task
Camilla Bome & Ingrid Kongtorp Vargen (2017). The development and pilot of a Norwegian adaptation of the LITMUS Sentence Repetition task. Master thesis, University of Bergen.
Polish task
Russian task
Meir, N. & Armon-Lotem, S. (2015). Disentangling bilingualism from SLI in Heritage Russian: The impact of L2 properties and length of exposure to the L2. In Cornelia Hamann and Esther Ruigendijk (Eds). Language Acquisition and Development: Proceedings of GALA 2013 (pp.299-314). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Turkish task
Boz, B. (2019). Do Some Bilinguals Have an L3 Learning Advantage and Others Don't, Bachelor thesis, Utrecht University, Netherlands, 2019.
Erdoğan, E. (2015). The Language Development Performmances of Turkish-English Sequential Bilingual Children Living in England: An Investigation in Regard of Risk for Specific Language Impairment, Institute of Health Sciences, Department of Speech and Language Therapy, MSc thesis, Anadolu University, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2015.
Savaş, M. (2019). Investigation of the Relationship between Language Disorders and Anti-Neuronal Antibodies in Patients with Rolandic Epilepsy. (Rolandik Epilepsi Olgularında Dil Bozuklukları ile Anti-Nöronal Antikor İlişkisinin İncelenmesi), PhD disertation, Istanbul University, Institute of Health Sciences, Department of Neuroscience, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019.
Welsh task
Chondrogianni, V., & John, N. (2018). Tense and plural formation in Welsh–English bilingual children with and without language impairment. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 53(3).
Chondrogianni, V., & Kwon, H. (2019). The development of English tense and agreement in Welsh-speaking bilingual children with and without SLI. Applied Psycholinguistics.