| Description |
The primary purpose of the proposed fellowship is to provide the opportunity to standardize speech and language assessments that can identify monolingual and bilingual Maltese children who have speech and language impairment. Such children are at risk of disadvantage socially and academically unless identified and therapy is provided. Research on English-speaking populations suggests that approximately 10% of all children have difficulties acquiring speech and/or language in the absence of other impairments However, no data are available for bilingual populations or countries (such as Malta) where most of the population speaks more than language. The objectives of the study are: -To compare and contrast monolingual (Maltese or English) and bilingual (Maltese and English) language development in the bilingual language learning context of Malta; -To establish normative data for four novel assessments, for monolingual and bilingual children aged 2;0-6;0, for receptive and expressive language; -To prepare the assessments for clinical use by speech-language therapists to identify children with delayed or disordered language acquisition who come from monolingual or bilingual home environments; -To describe the characteristics of different types of functional developmental language disorders (receptive and expressive) in the Maltese language; -To analyze data from Maltese children with speech disorder to validate an assessment of articulation and phonology for which normative data are already established (Grech and Dodd, 2008); -To determine factors affecting choice of language code (language switching/mixing and use of translation equivalents). Language samples already collected from large groups of typically developing (N = 241) and language disordered (N = 150) 2-6 year old Maltese children, will be analyzed. This is a follow-up study of a project funded by the Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge Scheme (Contract No: MTKD-CT-2004-509833).
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