Newcastle University

Project:

Assessment and Management of Children with English as an Additional Language Children who have Communication Impairments: Finding a new way forward

From September 2006 to September 2008
Project Leader(s): Dr Carolyn Letts, Dr Ghada Khattab
Contact: c.a.letts@ncl.ac.uk
Sponsors: ESRC
Homepage: http://www.ecls.ncl.ac/ealwis/

The aim of this seminar series is to bring together professionals from different disciplines to discuss the needs of children with English as an Additional Language (EAL), ways to assess their language(s), and optimal plans for managing any potential speech and language impairment that they may present with. From a clinical point of view, when working with bilinguals it is essential to be able to differentiate between language problems that are due to impairment and those that are due to inadequate exposure to either of the bilingual’s languages. This task is made even harder when working with children, as there are individual differences with respect to developmental stages in both monolingual and bilingual acquisition, so that what may be perceived as impairment may in fact be within normal limits in any of the developmental stages. At the same time, therapists cannot wait too long before referring bilinguals with suspected language impairment to therapy, as earlier intervention may lead to faster improvement (Salameh, 2003). Both languages of the bilingual need to be assessed in order to find out whether intervention is needed for one or both of the child’s developing languages. This is often difficult to implement in the UK due to the difficulty in obtaining relevant information regarding the norms for monolingual acquisition as well as in finding speech and language therapists from within the immigrant community or language experts who may be able to act as assistant therapists. Due to common misunderstandings about bilingual development, hundreds of families are often wrongly advised to stop providing input to their children from one of the languages (Stow & Dodd, 2003). This often influences the children’s opportunity to acquire both of their languages with a native-like accent and to maintain their cultural and religious heritage. The combination of language impairment and behavioural problems that might emerge due to the child’s impoverished cultural and linguistic experiences present teachers, speech and language therapists, psychologists, and paediatric medical personnel with real challenges with regard to helping these children. More research on ways to assess and manage these children is therefore needed, especially in cases where one or more of the languages spoken by EAL children have rarely been studied. Better communication should also be fostered between researchers and practitioners. The specific objectives of this seminar series are therefore to:

• Find new approaches to addressing issues of diagnosis, intervention, and management of EAL children with speech, language and/or communication impairments
• In the absence of language experts for all the additional languages spoken by children in the UK, develop norms for language and communication development that are not language-specific
• Based on these norms, develop measurement tools that are not language-specific and that can be used to diagnose impairment in EAL children
• Develop ways of assessing EAL children’s English which may provide insight into whether there is a general language-learning problem present
• Discuss existing gaps in the literature on the acquisition of languages other than English and the normal or expected patterns to be observed when children use more than one language in the same discourse setting; the identified gaps would then be addressed in further research plans.

The outcomes of these meetings will be used to inform bilingualism teaching for those on professional courses in order to equip the next generation of speech and language therapists and teachers with optimal techniques for meeting the needs of EAL children in schools and clinics.