Identifying DLD in bilingual children and the role of cognition

Invited talk by Rachel Kan (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

Abstract:

The identification of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) remains a thorny issue in bilingual children, due to the lack of appropriate standardised tests and norms. In Hong Kong, 8-10% of children present with speech and/or language difficulties, and around 8% of the population are heritage speakers of a minority language. The LITMUS (Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong, & Meir, 2015), which was designed to be sensitive to differences between bilingual children with and without DLD, has been adapted to the Hong Kong context in order to pave the way for more unbiased assessment of language acquisition and more accurate identification of genuine impairment. This talk will focus on how cognitive abilities underlying language performance are being tapped in these LITMUS tools and what the results so far say about the diagnostic potential for the Hong Kong context.

Rachel Kan is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies/Speech Therapy Unit, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interest is in bilingual development and heritage language acquisition.

Registration is required (and free) via this form. Please register by midnight the night before the talk. You will receive a Zoom link to the talk about an hour before the event begins.