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Prof Philippe Prevost (University of Tours): Is growing up with two languages particularly challenging for autistic children?

The Multilingual Mind: lecture series on multilingualism across disciplines

26.1.2021

Tuesday, 17.00 - 18.30 (CET/UTC+01)

Zoom room: zoom.us/j/94531600895

Abstract

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder involving qualitative impairment in social interaction and communication, and limited, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior (DSM-V, APA 2013). Language is affected in all children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In particular, pragmatics has been shown to be impaired in all autistic children, with many also having difficulties with formal aspects of language, such as morphosyntax. The number of children growing up with more than one language being on the rise across the world, there is an increasing number of bilingual children being diagnosed with ASD. The question thus arises as to whether learning two (or more) languages in parallel is an aggravating factor for autistic children, taking into consideration the fact that to this day families of bilingual children with ASD are often advised that the child should abandon the family language. During this lecture, we will review the literature on language development in bilingual children with ASD, focusing mainly on methodological issues and on the way bilingualism factors (such as age of onset and length of exposure) have been taken into account. This review will also lead us to discuss how language may be assessed in a bilingual context.