Bilingual advantages in the acquisition of L3 grammatical aspect: Is positive transfer available in DLD?

This research investigates whether bilingual children speaking an aspectual heritage language, along with a non-aspectual majority language (Dutch), benefit in the acquisition of aspect in L3 English. We also test the hypothesis that positive cross-language transfer in the grammatical domain is not/less available to children with DLD. The analysis of English narratives demonstrated that bilingual children used English progressive forms at native-like rates, whereas monolinguals overused simple forms. Contrary to our hypothesis, both typically-developing bilinguals and bilinguals with DLD benefitted from their knowledge of an aspectual heritage language. The frequency of periphrastic progressive in Dutch did not predict the rate of progressive forms in English in either group, despite typological proximity between Dutch and English.