Graduation Ceremony 4
Graduand’s Address
Wednesday 24 November 2010 at 1630hrs
JESUITS’ CHURCH – VALLETTA
Daniela Gatt
Ph.D graduand and representative of the students
Hon. Minister, Chancellor, Rector, Registrar, Distinguished Guests, Fellow Members of
the Academic Body, Fellow Graduands, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am truly honoured to be addressing you today. On this special occasion I am
representing Master and Doctor of Philosophy graduands who come from the Faculties of
Arts, Engineering and Health Sciences, and from the Edward DeBono Institute for the
Design and Development of Thinking. Notwithstanding this diversity, we are here united
to celebrate an important milestone in our lives. For doctoral graduands, this gathering
marks individual contributions to scientific knowledge in our respective fields, further
strengthening our Alma Mater’s reputation for innovative and commendable research.
Some years back, each one of us chose to embark on a journey of discovery and learning
and, in all probability, my fellow graduands would agree that the targets we set ourselves
necessitated much commitment, self-discipline and solid work, costing us veritable
blood, sweat and tears. Today, however, the satisfaction and fulfilment resulting from our
toil are likely to be considered worth every effort.
The goals each one of us pursued throughout his or her studies had functional and
practical motivations. Drawing on my clinical experience as a speech-language
pathologist, I set myself the target of exploring the first words used by typicallydeveloping Maltese children. Locally, as in many countries across the world, the lack of
language development norms for infants and toddlers has led to an inevitable reliance on
intuition and experience when drawing diagnostic conclusions on children’s language
difficulties. My aim of documenting children’s earliest vocabulary skills was intended to
provide preliminary reference measures that could guide clinical decision-making.
Having worked for a number of years with children brought up in Maltese-speaking
families, I was also intrigued by the presence of English words in early expressive
vocabularies and wanted to investigate this pattern of language use as it unfolded.
With both Maltese and English having official language status in the Maltese Islands,
societal bilingualism is widespread and substantial language mixing occurs on a national
scale. In the home context, young Maltese children may be exposed simultaneously to
Maltese and English. Alternatively, they may be exposed primarily to a single language,
Maltese or English, until the point of school entry, when exposure to the second language
becomes more systematic. Such a pattern of language exposure constitutes sequential
bilingualism. Young Maltese children are therefore exposed to different combinations of
Maltese and English language use in their homes, while bilingualism in the wider society
is consistently present. Examination of young Maltese children’s language skills and the
emergence of bilingual or monolingual ability in the early years is an important research
target that has implications for language policy planning and implementation.
The latest National Census showed the Maltese language as the preferred home language
for the absolute majority of the population. Moreover, adult-child interactions in Maltesespeaking contexts involve specific patterns of language contact, in that Maltese language
use with children typically involves English content words embedded in Maltese
utterances, resulting in a mixed input pattern. As a result, Maltese children acquiring
language in the context of mixed input in the home and bilingualism in the wider
community provided a distinctive population for the investigation of vocabulary
development.
Early vocabulary skills represent children’s initial attempts at getting to grips with the
adult language. Children’s word learning is an amazing feat. Infants listen intently to the
language spoken to them. They isolate words or phrases used repeatedly by their
interlocutors, linking these to salient entities in their immediate environments and storing
these associations in memory. As children grow older, they utilise their developing social
and cognitive skills to deduce adults’ communicative intentions as they speak to them.
Repeated exposure to language allows children to refine their mental representations of
word meanings and make them more accurate. This mental store of words provides
children with templates that guide their own production of meaningful vocabulary.
Attempts at reproducing words heard in input may not be consistently successful at first,
but as children hone their expressive abilities, word production becomes more adult-like.
Research has established that spoken language emerges around the age of 12 months,
although evidence also shows that children vary immensely in the rate at which they
develop their expressive vocabularies. My study concluded that typically-developing
Maltese children at specific age points between 12 and 30 months produced varying
numbers of vocabulary items and showed different degrees of talkativeness. This
identification of the range of word production abilities expected of young children helps
to define the boundaries of normal variation, which in turn has theoretical and clinical
relevance.
There is a cross-linguistic trend of massive variability across children in the rate of
expressive vocabulary development. Theoretically, therefore, data for Maltese children’s
early language development make a contribution towards the construction of a universal
theory of language acquisition. Given the mixed language environment to which young
children brought up in Maltese-speaking families are exposed, such findings provide
novel information on early vocabulary development in a special language context and
extend our current knowledge on children’s language-learning mechanisms.
Empirical evidence on the range of expressive vocabulary skills expected of young
Maltese children also has clinical importance. Since vocabulary acquisition acts as a
launching pad for early language development, delays in word understanding and
production inevitably hinder the language learning process. Children may experience
expressive vocabulary delay in the absence of sensory and neurological impairment and
alongside normal non-verbal cognitive abilities. Children showing a mild languagelearning lag may recover completely. For others, however, difficulties may not be
transient in nature. A proportion of children who appear to catch up with their peers may
continue to show subtle language deficits as they grow older. Early vocabulary delays
that do not resolve are likely to evolve into persistent and marked language impairments
that place children at risk for long-term consequences.
It is estimated that two children in every classroom across Europe present with Specific
Language Impairment. The latter is a diagnostic category that involves mild to severe
language difficulties that are not secondary to an overriding condition but occur in the
presence of broadly normal accompanying abilities. Early identification is highly
recommended to help mitigate the potential effects of Specific Language Impairment.
Vocabulary delays in young children are best regarded as a potential indicator of this
condition at a later stage. It is therefore crucial that delayed expressive vocabulary skills
are not dismissed as a temporary phenomenon that will be outgrown and in the event of
concerns about limited expressive abilities in early childhood, it is imperative that a
speech-language pathologist is consulted.
The unavailability of language development norms for Maltese children, which has
hindered the objectivity of clinical language assessment and diagnosis over the years, was
the motivational force behind my research study. Documenting the extent of variation in
word production of Maltese-speaking children therefore represents a first step towards
setting up a normative reference base that can aid the early detection of children at risk
for Specific Language Impairment. Additional systematic enquiry of Maltese children’s
language development is needed in order to facilitate and enhance service provision to
children with language impairments. Although research efforts are currently being
channelled in this direction, there is a dire need for further scientific investigation that
aims to document typical language acquisition and to develop norm-referenced tests.
Besides an in-depth consideration of language abilities in early childhood, there is also
scope for advancing our knowledge with regard to children’s continuing language
development after school entry. The onset of schooling may introduce children to
language exposure patterns that differ from those received throughout the early years,
potentially influencing their progress in achieving adult-like language proficiency.
Providing support for such research initiatives in terms of human and financial resources
is an investment in our children’s well-being and quality of life.
My own encounter with doctoral research has been to me a lesson in life. Having
experienced the effect of perseverance, I have definitely learnt about its requisite in
demanding circumstances. My recommendation to all students would therefore be to
strongly believe in the ultimate goal they are engaged in pursuing. Striving to reach a
worthwhile target against all odds is probably the hallmark of every student’s success. I
must here also acknowledge the unfailing encouragement and support forthcoming from
those close to me. It was their gentle pushing and pulling that reminded me of the need to
persevere, particularly when enthusiasm and energy levels were running low. In effect,
today’s occasion may be seen as the culmination of a series of joint efforts. The input of a
resilient backstage crew is an important contributor to every graduand’s achievement.
Although today’s occasion brings with it the closing of an important chapter in our lives,
I would dare to invite all graduands to attempt extending this journey into one of lifelong
learning. An unrelenting inquisitiveness and a constant search for further knowledge are
likely to bring with them more fulfilment. So, rather than drawing the line here and being
content with what we know today, let us all make this the beginning of a new chapter.