Available Online: 28 September 2020
Author/s:
Dosi, Ifigeneia*
Democritus University of Thrace, Greece (idosi@helit.duth.gr)
Sotiriadis, Savvas
Democritus University of Thrace, Greece (sotiriadis88@yahoo.com)
Abstract:
The present study aimed to address monolingual and bilingual language development of two pre-school children with autism spectrum disorders. Bilingual families of children with autism spectrum disorders are often advised to speak and communicate with their child in only one of the two languages, since as common view was that bilingualism burdens language development. Nevertheless, research data confirm the opposite and claim that bilingualism is not a deterrent factor to language development of children with autism spectrum disorders. To this aim, we tested a monolingual and a bilingual child with autism spectrum disorders, aged 4 years; 2 months and 4 years; 4 months, respectively. They received speech and language therapy sessions twice a week for 7 months in order to communicate more widely and to enhance their linguistic abilities. Appropriate speech therapy material was used to improve their cognitive and linguistic abilities. The results of study showed that the bilingual child developed quicker his phonological abilities, his receptive and expressive vocabulary, his verbal and non-verbal pragmatic abilities and his cognitive abilities, compared to the monolingual child. These outcomes confirm previous research data, suggesting that bilingualism has a positive effect on autism spectrum disorders.
Keywords: bilingualism; autism spectrum disorders; early language development; language interventions
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrse.2020.5047
Cite this article:
Dosi, I., & Sotiriadis, S. (2020). Interventions for early language development in monolingual and bilingual children with autism spectrum disorders: Two case studies. International Journal of Research Studies in Education, 9(7), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrse.2020.5047
*Corresponding Author