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Written by Eva-Kristina Salameh

Bilingual children with language impairment in preschool and school – assessment and intervention

Many children in the Nordic countries have another mother tongue than the majority language. Some children have problems developing their second language. A "typical" second language development is hard to define, not least because many children live in a linguistic environment, where there are no or few monolingual children talking the majority language.

It is thus important to have access to assessment methods and assessment tools based on data from bilingual children, growing up in such linguistic environments, to avoid misdiagnosing a child with language impairment, while the child maybe developing the second language as good as can be expected, based on the linguistic and social conditions surrounding them.

Preschool and school have a huge importance for the linguistic development in both languages. To be able to support the children the staff need knowledge of bilingual language development, and culturally different ways of language socialisation, not least in the Nordic culture. The amount of awareness in preschool and school regarding language socialisation have significance for the child's literacy process and thus for their academic success.