INTERCULTURALITY: APPLIED AND CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES INTERNATIONAL EPIC CONFERENCE –
Antwerpen 15-16/10/2015
Charlotte Mostaert1 (presenting author) charlotte.mostaert@thomasmore.be
Heleen Leysen1 heleen.leysen@thomasmore.be
Winibert Segers2 winibert.segers@kuleuven.be
1
Department of Speech-Language Therapy and Audiology, Thomas More (Antwerpen), Belgium
2
Unit Translation Technology, Campus Sint-Andries (Antwerpen), KU Leuven, Belgium
LANGUAGE ANALYSIS IN COOPERATION WITH INTERPRETERS
ABSTRACT
Bilingual children with language difficulties often are misdiagnosed. On the one hand they can be
overdiagnosed as language-disordered when in fact the child struggles with only one language. On
the other hand bilingual children can be underdiagnosed when the difficulties in all the languages of
the child are not identified as a language disorder. Underdiagnosis is mainly due to limited
knowledge of bilingualism since the observed problems are incorrectly seen as a consequence of the
bilingual development.
To avoid misdiagnoses and the vast social and human cost that goes along with it, a thorough
assessment of the capacities in both languages is necessary. Unfortunately a speech language
pathologist (SLP) usually is not proficient in the child’s foreign home language. Interpreters with
sufficient language proficiency in both languages could help the SLP. However interpreters are not
trained to analyse language and detect linguistic errors. In addition they lack background information
on bilingual development and language disorders. For assisting SLPs in the diagnostic process by
providing information on the language competence of bilingual children in their home language, a
new function ‘language analist’ is needed.
With support of the Provincie Antwerpen we developed a blended learning course consisting of two
programs, one for SLPs and one for interpreters. SLPs learn how to diagnose multilingual children
with language difficulties and interpreters become language analists.
In future a reliable and valid certification test for language analists will be designed based on a
measurable and concrete competence profile. Therefore a collaboration between the Unit
Translation Technology and the Faculty of Medicine (Logopaedic and Audiologic sciences) of KU
Leuven and the Department of Speech-Language Therapy and Audiology of Thomas More will be
started.