Speech and language difficulties in bilingual children: flaky social construct or double deficit?

How does bilingualism affect language disability in children? Might bilingualism cause or exacerbate language difficulties? What are the best intervention strategies?

This talk explores the notion of speech and language difficulties in bilingual children through cultural lenses of understanding difference and disability. How are speech and language difficulties constructed around differences in language development in English and other languages? To what extent do speech and language difficulties result from material language learning needs in two languages?

It focuses on two categories of difficulty: difficulties in reading related to speech difficulties (dyslexia), and difficulties in fluent speech (dysfluency, also known as stammering and stuttering). I take them as examples to discuss how bilingual speakers may show these difficulties, and to interrogate the extent to which bilingualism may be thought to cause or exacerbate language difficulties. I will also look at what is meant by intervention. Is intervention successful only through individual-based clinical models which focus on language processing? Can we successfully support speech and language difficulties in inclusive education settings? Is intervention successful in one or both languages?

Through this discussion we may obtain more insight into how we theorise speech and language difficulties, and how working with bilingual speakers can advance understanding of both speech and language and difficulties and approaches to intervention.

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