Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

Ce séminaire reçoit des conférenciers invités spécialisés dans différents domaines de la linguistique. Les membres du Département, les étudiants et les personnes externes intéressées sont tous cordialement invités.

Description du séminaire Print

Titre 'Can children with autism grow up bilingually? Insights from experimental pragmatics'
Conférencier Napoléon Katsos (University of Cambridge)
Date mardi 02 avril 2019
Heure 12h30  changement d'horaire
Salle L208 (Bâtiment Candolle)
Description

Among parents and professionals there is a common belief that bilingual exposure may be detrimental to the development of children with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. In this presentation I will review collaborative research that addresses the question of bilingualism in the context of a developmental disorder from multiple perspectives. Starting from the observation that bilingualism is a fundamental right of children (Articles 23 and 30; United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1989), I will then present a systematic meta-analysis which reveals that bilingualism has no adverse effect on the linguistic and cognitive development of children with autism. In fact, cognitive models of pragmatic competence and of cognitive functioning in bilingualism suggest that bilingualism may be beneficial for children with autism. I will present a handful of studies on pragmatics in bilingual children with and without autism that suggest this might be the case. Finally, research that represents the lived experiences of parents and children themselves will be used to shed light into the challenges and expectations that families of bilingual children with autism face in everyday life and to motivate further investigations.

   
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