The study of children with developmental language disorder beyond English: a tutorial.
Laurence B Leonard1, Mariel L Schroeder1
1Purdue University.
Language Acquisition
|November 18, 2024
Summary
This tutorial promotes studying children with developmental language disorder (DLD) across diverse languages to enhance theories of language acquisition and learning difficulties. Such cross-linguistic research benefits children and societies globally.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Speech-Language Pathology
Background:
- Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) affects children's language acquisition.
- Cross-linguistic research is crucial for comprehensive understanding of DLD.
- Existing research often focuses on a limited range of languages.
Purpose of the Study:
- To encourage and guide the cross-linguistic study of children with DLD.
- To foster development of robust theories on language learning difficulties and acquisition.
- To highlight benefits for affected children and their communities.
Main Methods:
- Presenting considerations for cross-linguistic DLD research.
- Providing examples of research questions from diverse languages (e.g., Cantonese, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, English).
- Discussing within- and between-language comparisons, including morphophonology, prosody, syntax, and verb complexity.
Main Results:
- Illustrates how diverse linguistic data can inform DLD theories.
- Demonstrates comparative approaches using typically developing peers.
- Highlights the need for broader language inclusion in DLD research.
Conclusions:
- Cross-linguistic studies are essential for advancing theories of DLD and language acquisition.
- Expanding the range of languages studied will significantly enhance understanding of childhood language disorders.
- Collaboration across disciplines can broaden research scope and impact.
Keywords:
cross-linguistic researchdevelopmental language disordergrammarlanguage acquisitionspecific language impairmentMore Related Videos
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