Though Germany has long provided education for children speaking a heritage language and received two recent waves of refugees, reliable assessment tools for diagnosis of language impairment or the progress in the acquisition of German as a second language (L2) by refugee children are still lacking. The few tools expressly targeting bilingual populations are normed for younger, early successive bilingual children. This study investigates 27 typically developing children with Arabic as first language (L1), comparing 15 school-age Syrian refugees (6;6–12;8), with 12 heritage speakers (6;0–12;9). We assess the L1 and L2 skills of these two groups with standardized tests, but crucially with an Arabic and a German sentence repetition (SRT) as well as a nonword (NWRT) repetition task (Grimm & Hübner, in press; Marinis & Armon-Lotem, 2015). Comparable scores emerged only for German LITMUS-NWRT and Arabic LITMUS-SRT. Refugee children had an advantage in L1 measures, for example, vocabulary and morphosyntactic production, whereas they performed poorly in the German LITMUS-SRT and other L2 tests involving morphosyntax and vocabulary even with 24 months of systematic exposure. This indicates that the acquisition of adequate vocabulary and complex syntax takes time. The paper explores factors influencing performance on the repetition tasks and relates the results to established diagnostic procedures and educational policies.

中文翻译：

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德国讲阿拉伯语的遗产和难民儿童的语言评估工具

尽管德国长期以来一直为讲传统语言的儿童提供教育，并且最近收到了两波难民潮，但仍然缺乏用于诊断语言障碍或难民儿童将德语作为第二语言 (L2) 习得进展的可靠评估工具。明确针对双语人群的少数工具适用于较年轻的早期连续双语儿童。本研究调查了 27 名以阿拉伯语为第一语言 (L1) 的典型发育儿童，比较了 15 名学龄叙利亚难民 (6;6-12;8) 和 12 名传统母语 (6;0-12;9)。我们通过标准化测试评估这两组的 L1 和 L2 技能，但关键是使用阿拉伯语和德语句子重复 (SRT) 以及非单词 (NWRT) 重复任务 (Grimm & Hübner, in press; Marinis & Armon-洛特姆，2015）。仅德语 LITMUS-NWRT 和阿拉伯语 LITMUS-SRT 出现可比分数。难民儿童在 L1 测量方面具有优势，例如词汇和形态句法产生，而他们在德国 LITMUS-SRT 和其他涉及形态句法和词汇的 L2 测试中表现不佳，即使系统接触了 24 个月。这表明获得足够的词汇和复杂的句法需要时间。本文探讨了影响重复任务表现的因素，并将结果与​​既定的诊断程序和教育政策联系起来。而他们在德语 LITMUS-SRT 和其他涉及形态句法和词汇的 L2 测试中表现不佳，即使系统暴露了 24 个月。这表明获得足够的词汇和复杂的句法需要时间。本文探讨了影响重复任务表现的因素，并将结果与​​既定的诊断程序和教育政策联系起来。而他们在德语 LITMUS-SRT 和其他涉及形态句法和词汇的 L2 测试中表现不佳，即使系统暴露了 24 个月。这表明获得足够的词汇和复杂的句法需要时间。本文探讨了影响重复任务表现的因素，并将结果与​​既定的诊断程序和教育政策联系起来。