Multilingual Perspectives On Child Language Disorders

This book investigates language disorders in children who speak languages other than, or in addition to, English. The chapters in the first section of the volume focus on language disorders associated with four different syndromes in multilingual populations and contexts. This section discusses language disorders associated with autism spectrum disorders, Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome and Williams syndrome. The chapters in the second section of the book relate to language impairment in children who speak diverse languages, although the issues they address are relevant across languages and cultural contexts. The book also reviews assessment procedures and intervention approaches for diverse languages, including Bengali, Cantonese, French, Spanish, and Turkish. The volume aims to stimulate thoughtful clinical practice and further research in language disorders in multilingual populations.

This volume brings together a collection of empirical studies on phonological acquisition and disorder of monolingual children speaking different languages (English, German, Putonghua, Cantonese, Maltese, Telugu, Colloquial Egyptian Arabic and Turkish) and bilingual children speaking different language pairs (Spanish-English, Cantonese-English, Mirpuri/Punjabi/Urdu-English, Welsch-English, Arabic-English and Putonghua-Cantonese). The research findings provide much-needed baseline information for clinical assessment and diagnosis as well as valuable evidence concerning theories of language acquisition and the role of the ambient language.

Language Disorders in Bilingual Children and Adults, Third Edition, provides speech-language pathologists, advanced students in communication disorders programs, and clinical language researchers with information needed to formulate and respond to questions related to effective service delivery to bilingual children and adults with suspected or confirmed language disorders. The bilinguals of interest represent varying levels of first and second language proficiency across the lifespan. That is, bilingualism is not determined here by proficiency in each language, but rather by the individual's experience or need for two languages. In separate chapters, the book synthesizes the literature on bilingual children and adults with typical and atypical language skills. These chapters give the reader a deep understanding of the multiple factors that affect language development and disorders in those who rely on two languages for meaningful interactions. Chapters on assessment and intervention issues and methods are then presented for each population. For children, the text focuses on developmental language disorder but also discusses secondary language disorders (such as autism spectrum disorder) in bilingual populations. For adults, the focus is on aphasia, with additional discussion of dementia, traumatic brain injury, and right hemisphere disorder. Although child and adult, typical and atypical populations are presented separately, all are considered within a unifying Dynamic Interactive Processing perspective and within a new Means-Opportunities-Motives framework for understanding language disorders in bilinguals. This broad theoretical framework emphasizes interactions between social, cognitive, and communicative systems to form the basis for very practical implications related to assessment and intervention. This third edition has been completely updated to reflect the current research on bilingual populations and the best practices for working with them. Studies at the intersection of bilingualism and language disorders have expanded to include additional disorders and new language combinations. The authors synthesize the current literature and translate it for clinical use. New to the Third Edition • Coauthors Kerry Danahy Ebert, PhD, CCC-SLP and Giang Thuy Pham, PhD, CCC-SLP • Updated literature review and references to reflect new research on bilingualism, cultural competence, cognitive advantages and clinical practice with linguistically diverse populations • Case studies on assessment with bilingual children and adults • Additional tables and figures summarizing key information • Available evidence on additional child and adult language disorders in bilinguals • Updated extension activities and resource supplement

The last 25 years have witnessed an explosion of research at the intersection of typical language development and child language disorders. A pioneer in bringing these fields of study together is Robin S. Chapman, Emerita, University of Wisconsin. This contributed volume honors her with chapters written by former students and colleagues, who track in their own research the theme of psycholinguistic contributions to our understanding of the nature and remediation of child language disorders. In this volume, such renowned researchers in child language development as Dorothy Bishop, Judith Johnston, and Ray Kent, among others, discuss their research in certain populations in the context of the significance of, limits of, and alternatives to Robin Chapman’s developmental interactionist perspective. Studies of disordered language in Down’s Syndrome and Specific Language Impairment, in particular, attribute much progress in our understanding of the pragmatic and comprehension skills in these populations to the developmental perspective. Language Disorders From a Developmental Perspective opens with a reprint of Robin Chapman’s seminal 2001 article from The Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology. It concludes with a new chapter from Dr. Chapman summarizing what we know and what we don’t know about language disorders within the developmental framework, and pointing to future areas of research and intervention. Clinicians as well as scholars will benefit from this book, as will students in programs of developmental psycholinguistics, child language disorders, and learning disabilities.

The acquisition of language is one of the most remarkable human achievements. When language acquisition fails to occur as expected, the impact can be far-reaching, affecting all aspects of the child’s life and the child’s family. Thus, research into the nature, causes, and remediation of children’s language disorders provides important insights into the nature of language acquisition and its underlying bases and leads to innovative clinical approaches to these disorders. This second edition of the Handbook of Child Language Disorders brings together a distinguished group of clinical and academic researchers who present novel perspectives on researching the nature of language disorders in children. The handbook is divided into five sections: Typology; Bases; Language Contexts; Deficits, Assessment, and Intervention; and Research Methods. Topics addressed include autism, specific language impairment, dyslexia, hearing impairment, and genetic syndromes and their deficits, along with introductions to genetics, speech production and perception, neurobiology, linguistics, cognitive science, and research methods. With its global context, this handbook also includes studies concerning children acquiring more than one language and variations within and across languages. Thoroughly revised, this edition offers state-of-the-art information in child language disorders together in a single volume for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students. It will also serve as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in speech-language pathology, audiology, special education, and neuropsychology, as well as for individuals interested in any aspect of language acquisition and its disorders.

During the last years a significant number of papers, books, and monographs devoted to speech and language impairments in bilingual children have been published. Different aspects and questions have been approached and today we have a relatively good understanding of the specific characteristics of the speech and language difficulties potentially observed in bilingual and multilingual children. This interest has been significantly resulted from the potential developmental and educational consequences of bilingualism. Our understanding of the communication disorders in adult populations is notoriously more limited, even though over 50% of the adult population can speak at least another language in addition to his/her native language. That simply means that over 50% of the communication disorders observed in adults are bilingual speech and language disorders: bilingual aphasias, bilingual dementias, bilingual stuttering, etc. This book was written with the specific purpose of filling this gap. The major purpose of this book has been to integrate the state of the art on the different aspects of the communication disorders observed in adult bilinguals. The book is organised in such a way that an integrated perspective of bilingualism is presented: from the normal conditions to the pathology; from the clinical descriptions to the rehabilitation issues; from the biological factors to the cultural variables.