Clinical intervention for bilingual children: an international survey

This paper reports on the results of an international survey undertaken by the Multilingual Affairs Committee of the IALP, to investigate the intervention provided to bilingual children. Information pertaining to 157 children was obtained from 99 speech-language therapists in 13 countries. The survey addressed biographical details and language background of the children, the diagnosed communication disorder, language competence of the therapists, issues pertaining to the language of intervention, use of interpreters, advice given to parents regarding the use of each language, and possible results of intervention. The findings are specific to each country and related to the sociolinguistic context. Very few therapists provide bilingual intervention, although many have strategies for ensuring the development of both languages, such as advising parents to speak only the home language. Therapists were generally unable to provide quantifiable intervention results due to a paucity of assessment materials for bilinguals. The IALP Multilingual Affairs Committee used the results of this survey to develop guidelines for working with multilingual populations with communication disorders.