The School of
Teacher Education Research and
Scholarship Brown Bag Seminar for Monday 27th August is titled: "Providing equitable and quality
service for
multilingual children with speech sound disorders in a linguistically diverse
context". This presentation was made by Sarah Verdon, a PhD student I am supervising with Sandie Wong. The presentation was part of her endorsement of her PhD candidature.
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| Elise Baker (University of Sydney), Sarah Verdon, Sandie Wong, Sharynne |
Australia is one of the world’s most multilingual countries. However, little is known about the demographics of Australia’s multilingual children and the early childhood education and health services available to support them. Most multilingual children are able to acquire their languages without difficulty; however, some children do not. Multilingual speech and language acquisition is different from monolingual acquisition and its unique and complex nature is less understood. Multilingual children with speech sound disorders are not being identified at the same rate as monolingual children and therefore are at risk of the many known impacts of speech sound disorders such as poor literacy development and later educational and social success. This research aims to provide demographic data about the linguistic diversity of multilingual children, their location in Australia, their language acquisition patterns, and the early childhood education and health services available to them. Through the study of innovative practices of early childhood education and health professionals from around the world, the second aim of this research is to identify strategies to effectively support Australia’s multilingual children with speech sound disorder. The knowledge gained from this research will inform the development of high quality, equitable, integrated services for multilingual children and increase positive outcomes for their future educational and social success.