THE ITALIAN BRANCH IN

Jan Casalicchio - Maria Vender [email protected] [email protected]

Trento, 13 September 2016 1 INTRODUCTION THE BM BRANCH IN TRENTO

Some data • The Trento branch opened in October 2012; • Part of the AThEME-Project; • 9 Members.

Main aims • Preschool children; • Heritage languages; • Minority languages; • Bilingualism and language pathology.

2 OVERVIEW BILINGUALISM IN

1. Historical minority languages • 3 minority languages are spoken in Trentino; • Protected by provincial laws.

2. New minorities • Immigration is a quite recent phenomenon in Trentino; • Nowadays, 12% of school children have a migration background.

3. Main international languages • Historically, Trentino was part of the Austrian Empire until 1918; • Geographically, Trentino is at the German-Italian language border; • Economically, close tights to the German-speaking world; • More recent interest towards English.

3 ACTIVITIES OF THE BRANCH PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

«Language snack time» at nursery schools • Parents with different mother tongues are invited to speak about their language to the children • Aim: to increase the awareness of linguistic differences in small children Meetings with parents and educators • Workshops on language issues within larger meetings on the education of small children • Aim: to help parents and educators to deal with children that do not speak Italian as L1

4 ACTIVITIES OF THE BRANCH HERITAGE LANGUAGES

School type Percentage «Give your child one more Kindergarten 14,5% language as gift» Primary school (7-11) 13,7% • Meeting for parents with migrant background Secondary school (11-14) 11,6% • Aim: to encourage parents to High School (14-19) 7,3% use their mother tongue at Professional courses (14-19) 17,1% home, whatever language they Total 12,13% speak Conferences for teachers (organised by other institutions) • Conferences about working in a multilingual school, and about improving the language skills of pupils • Aim: to give teachers more tools about multilingualism in general

5 ACTIVITIES OF THE BRANCH MINORITY LANGUAGES

Historical minorities in Trentino: • 1 Romance minority; • 2 German(ic) minorities; • Protected by provincial laws; • Main problem: transmission to the future generations

Public debates in the villages where a minority language is spoken • The minority speaking population is invited to share their impressions about the importance of speaking a minority language; • Aim: To illustrate the advantages of being multilingual, whatever the spoken languages are.

6 BILINGUALISM AND LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIES

Target groups: • Parents, teachers, educators, speech therapists, psychologists Challenge: • Identification of language disorders in bilingual children Preschool children: School-age children: • Possible poorer performance in • Possible difficulties in acquiring specific language domains reading and spelling skills

Similarities with Similarities with monolingual monolingual children affected by children affected by Specific Language Developmental Impairment Dyslexia

7 BILINGUALISM AND LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIES

Problem: • Absence of diagnostic tests standardized for bilinguals • Possible impact on the diagnosis of SLI and Dyslexia in bilingualism • Risks: ® Underdiagnosis (missed identities) ® Overdiagnosis (mistaken identities)

Linguistic immaturity or impairment?

Information: Research: Information service for parents, Studying the relationship teachers, educators, speech- between bilingualism, SLI therapists, psychologists and DD

8 BILINGUALISM AND LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIES

Bilingualism and Specific Language Impairment: • Period: 2012-2013 Thank you to the kindergartens: • Subjects: 160 children (3;7-6 y.o.) Scuola dell’Infanzia di San Michele Scuola dell’Infanzia di Grumo • 40 monolingual Italian Scuola dell’Infanzia di Trento “Solteri” • 40 Albanian-Italian Scuola dell’Infanzia di “Casa del Sole” • 40 Arabic-Italian Scuola dell’Infanzia di Rallo • 40 Romenian-Italian Scuola dell’Infanzia di Revò Scuola dell’Infanzia di Results: Scuola dell’Infanzia di • Bilinguals and SLI children have Scuola dell’Infanzia Equiparata di Cles Scuola dell’Infanzia Equiparata di distinct linguistic profile Scuola dell’Infanzia Equiparata di Taio • It is possible to distinguish them Scuola dell’Infanzia Equiparata di Scuola dell’Infanzia Equiparata di

Vender et al. (2016). How early L2 children perform on Italian clinical markers of SLI: A study of clitic production and nonword repetition. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 30 (2), 150-169.

9 BILINGUALISM AND LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIES

Bilingualism and Developmental Dyslexia (AThEME project)

• Period: 2015-present Thank you to: • Subjects: 108 children (7;9 – 12;6 y.o.) • Azienda Provinciale per i Servizi • 24 monolingual dyslexics Sanitari - Neuropsichiatria Infantile • 30 monolingual Italian controls (Trento) 24 bilingual dyslexics • Istituto Comprensivo Bassa Anaunia • • Istituto Comprensivo di Cles • 30 bilingual controls • Istituto Comprensivo di Revò • Istituto Comprensivo di Taio • Istituto Comprensivo di Tuenno • Scuola Primaria «Massalongo» Verona Results: • Bilingual dyslexics outperform monolingual dyslexics in some domains (metalinguistic awareness, executive functions)

10 BILINGUALISM AND LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIES

In conclusion… • Being bilinguals is not a source of additional difficulties • It can offer advantages and benefits, especially in atypical populations! • Bilingualism is always an opportunity to catch, even in the case of language pathologies!

11 Thank you!

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