& centerdot; The Narrative Scoring Scheme (NSS; Heilmann et al. 2010) is a scoring grid that assesses a story's macrostructure. It has been validated for use with young neurotypically developing English monolingual children. However, it has not been validated with school-aged bilingual and monolingual children on the autism spectrum (AS), even though many of these children have dif-ficulty with macrostructure. Given the potential differences in performances between 1) younger and older children, 2) children with a neurotypical development and those on the autism spectrum, 3) between bilinguals and monolinguals, we examined the psychometric properties of the NSS with bilingual and monolingual school-aged children on the autism spectrum. Storytelling and recall tasks were completed when children were 8.5-9 (n=66) and 10.5-11 years old (n=112). Outputs were scored by trained coders using the NSS. Interrater reliability, construct validity, and internal consistency were examined. We found high interrater reliability for Total scores, adequate construct validity, and high internal consistency across ages and conditions. There were also a few differences in the NSS's psychometric properties based on bilingual/monolingual groups assignment. We can conclude that the NSS is a fairly reliable and valid tool to use with school-aged bilingual and monolingual children on the autism spectrum
center dot Little is known about the expressive vocabularies of young children with bilingual language difficulties. The present study investigated the individual variability present in the expressive vocabulary skills of 3-year-olds with language difficulties, raised in a bilingual context where Mal-tese and English are spoken nationwide and hold majority status. Ten Maltese children aged 36-45 months, who had been diagnosed with language difficulties in the absence of significant biomedical conditions, participated in this study. A sample of younger typically-developing Maltese children was matched to the clinical group for vocabulary size. All children received predominantly Maltese language exposure in their daily settings. Central tendencies and range of variation in vocabulary production were measured through a bilingual vocabulary checklist completed by the parents. Re-ported vocabulary measures were compared to words elicited from the children on a non-standardized picture naming task. Group-and individual-level analyses revealed substantial variability in participants' vocabulary size. In contrast with measures for the typically-developing group, picture naming and checklist scores for the children with language difficulties were non-commensurate, in-dicating inaccuracies in parental reporting. Validation of parent-completed vocabulary checklists on typically-developing children does not necessarily imply similar levels of accuracy when employed with clinical populations. In monolingual and bilingual children with language difficulties whose input language/s lack normative data, multiple vocabulary measures that include direct assessment are called for, to minimize reporting bias.
Bilingualism is increasingly common, yet parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are often advised to use only one language due to concerns about language delays. This practice may limit communication, increase stress, and weaken familial bonds. However, emerging research suggests that bilingual exposure does not negatively impact language development in autistic children and may offer social, emotional, and cognitive benefits. This case study illustrates the implementation and outcomes of Cooperative Parent-Mediated Therapy (CPMT) in a bilingual family with a nonverbal, 3-year old child with ASD. The parents, native Swahili speakers also flu-ent in Italian, sought to support bilingual development through intervention. Parent-mediated interventions for ASD are recommended by international guidelines. Empowering parents as active participants maximizes opportunities for early therapeutic support. Parent-child interactions play a crucial role for autistic children, who typically experience limited social communication, especially in early developmental stages within familiar environments. CPMT, delivered through Italy's national health system, is based on Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions. It includes 15 ses-sions over 6 months, using live coaching, video feedback, and caregiver capacity-building strategies. Techniques such as ostensive communication, motherese, and gestures were employed in both Swahili and English. The child showed increased communicative intent and nonverbal communication, joint attention, and social engagement. In addition, parents reported reduced stress. CPMT supported bilingualism and enhanced parent-child interaction, supporting the family's bilingualism and the child's development. With growing rates of ASD diagnosis and increasing cultural/linguistic diversity, further clinical and experimental attention to this issue is clearly warranted.
The present study describes the story of Lorenzo, a 25-year-old young man affected by multiple disabilities, namely, deafness and autism, and his path towards social inclusion and personal autonomy, which could be achieved thanks to the particular method applied in the "Casa delle Luci" Foundation. His story witnesses to the numerous difficulties that the combination of a sensorial deficit with autism-related functioning often entails, in addition to the issues caused by countless different barriers in the social context. Bimodal bilingualism, which in Lorenzo's case associates Italian Sign Language (LIS) and Italian language, combined with the multimodal method applied by the aforementioned "Casa delle Luci" Foundation, based on the integration between multiple communication channels and tools, caused a significant turn in Lorenzo's life. This boy could overcome his linguistic difficulties, thereby improving his social and relational abilities and reducing the isolation to which young people with serious communicative disabilities are often exposed. The type of educational assistance and the environment ensured by the "Casa delle Luci" provided Lorenzo with opportunities for growth and social inclusion, which allowed him to be in charge of his own life. Lorenzo's story demonstrates that psychological support focused on the communicative needs of people with relevant communicative difficulties, coupled with a proper pedagogical method, is essential to restore dignity to these people, encourage their self-determination and participation, and consequently improve the quality of their lifes.
& centerdot; The article reviews the major findings of the studies conducted within a nascent re-search area, that of the intersection between bilingualism and autism. The first part reconstructs the historical reasons for the emergence of this area, basically related to demographic changes, new societal pressures, advances in conceptualization, assessment, and/or diagnostic tools, and increased awareness of the problems at stake. The second part considers three fundamental views that can be drawn from the literature about the impact of bilingualism on individuals with ASD: negative, favorable, and neutral. While the negative view mostly characterizes practitioners-even if not all of them-based on educational assumptions, the favorable and neutral views ground their conclu-sions on empirical studies or systematic reviews of these studies. Despite a series of methodological difficulties due to wide variability in both the bilingual and autistic conditions, variability in the socio-cultural resources of the populations investigated, and also limited access to bi-or multilingual research tools, promising results can be cautiously taken into account in some of the above studies. To date, the position that recurrently emerges from meta-analyses or systematic reviews on language and communication development in bilingual children with ASD is that bilingualism does not impoverish their linguistic and communication skills, and under favorable conditions, can even bring cognitive and communicative benefits similar to those of nonautistic bilingual children. Lastly, the author analyzes a series of gaps in the available studies that future research should address, and proposes extending to bilingualism with ASD the methodology of a promising neuropsychological area that showed significant modifications of the brain due to the bilingual experience in typical development.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and interaction, and restricted and stereotyped interests. The extent of the communication difficulties and influencing factors in the disorderis debated. In the current study, a case study methodology was adopted to allow for an in-depth analysis of individual language profiles of two adolescents with ASD (one monolingual and one bilingual), and one monolingual adolescent with DLD. Participants completed a series of tasks assessing Italian grammatical abilities as well as a specific investigation of the use of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person pronouns. The findings reveal that multilingualism is not a relevant factor in the language disorder in ASD, as the participants with ASD and DLD behaved differently regardless of their language condition : both participants with ASD demonstrated high accuracy on sentence and nonword repetition tasks, in contrast with the participant with DLD. Moreover, both participants with ASD showed high proficiency in the use of pronouns, contrary to the participant with DLD, except for the production of pronouns when the task required a perspective shift from 2nd to 1st person.
This article presents a pilot study on the administration of a test for the development of metalinguistic awareness (MLA, henceforth) in the context of a teletandem system for Italian-speaking university students learning French. We will first discuss the theoretical framework within the research on MLA and its role in foreign language didactics. Since measuring this awareness also means helping it to progress, we will present a system to assess and develop MLA by using a MLA test. We will then describe the structure we have configurated starting from the French version of this test (Pinto e-El Euch 2015) and its application to the context in which we proposed to work. Our French Teletandem is a partnership between the University of Clermont-Auvergne with its learners of FLE at Master's level, and the Italian universi-ties of Rome-"Sapienza" and Roma Tre in Rome, with their students in Foreign Languages and Literatures, who are learning French at bachelor's and master's levels. The preliminary results of this pilot study, obtained with 13 cases, are encouraging for what concerns the introduction of the MLA test as part of the teletandem itself, as they show a progression in the levels of MLA observed before and after the teletandem course.
This article proposes to explore the dynamics related to identity and otherness through a pragmatic analysis of the use of the French pronoun anous >> in the political speeches of Nigerian presidents. The study aims highlight the boundaries of identity (ingroup) and the values associated with the group's belonging which, by contrast, shape the outer group (outgroup). Based on a qualitative approach, the article examines the functions of the pronoun anous >> in its inclusiveness and exclusiveness dimension, understand its role in the construction of the relationships between Nigerian managers, their fellow citizens and their opponents. To this end, the analysis focuses on the speeches of the President Seyni Kountch & eacute; (1974), Mahamane Ousmane (1993) et Mahamadou Issoufou (2011). It reveals how the pronoun anous >> becomes a vehicle of ingroup and outgroup representations. Kountch & eacute;'s regime stands out for its use of anous >> that recriminates against the others while Ousmane's speech, the first democratically elected president, argues in favor of inclusivity and respect of the opponents. Issoufou, on his side, evokes anous >> to transform Nigerian population as a barrier against terrorism, which the main challenge of his mandate.
This study analyses the presence of foreign borrowed words in the lexicon of academic spoken Italian communication, evaluating their incidence in the language used for research, education and the internationalization paths characteristic of the university environment. Over time, several scholars have emphasized the ability of linguistic systems to evolve, absorbing input from other external systems at various levels, including the lexical one. Among them, Niccolb Machiavelli, who in his Discorso intorno alla nostra lingua (1515) states that `non si pu & ograve; trovare una lingua che parli ogni cosa per s & eacute; senza aver accattato da altri', or the linguist James Milroy, who claims that there is no perfectly stable human language (1992 : 1). The ability of languages to function and change (Saussure 1916) is amplified by the movements of individuals, whether for personal, professional or study reasons. These present languages with two options : subjugation to English, as a lingua franca of scientific knowledge and a medium of instruction, or the promotion of plurilingualism, integrating the linguistic repertoires of international students and staff. Academic language reflects these choices, welcoming foreign words useful for conveying new scientific concepts and paradigms. The present study aims to detect the presence of foreign borrowed words in the spoken Italian academic language, through the interrogation of a reference corpus. By means of a semi-automatic analysis, foreign lexical units will be extracted from the corpus exploited, so as to verify their use, and their influence in academic texts and discourses, regardless of the disciplinary fields involved (Nation 2001).
This study investigates how cognitive linguistics can enhance cultural heritage accessibility for individuals who are deaf, blind, or deafblind. Focusing on the role of lexicon, the research explores how language can be adapted to convey cultural content to people with sensory disabilities. Grounded in the embodied approach, which underscores the importance of sensory and motor experiences in understanding language (Lakoff & Johnson 1999 ; Barsalou 2008), the study highlights how lexicon can be tailored to reflect the diverse perceptual experiences of these individuals. By examining concrete examples of practices involving individuals with sensory disabilities, the research demonstrates effective strategies for making cultural content accessible. The methodology is interdissubtitling, and audio description. Importantly, the working group includes individuals with sensory disabilities, ensuring the relevance and accuracy of the adapted content. The process emphasizes LIS and Braille), and auditory (audio descriptions) formats. Touch emerges as a key element, enriching the sensory experience and fostering deep cognitive and aesthetic connections (Grassini 2015 ; Gallace & Spence 2014). This approach is exemplified by an ongoing project which involves a museum in Ragusa (the Iblean Archeological Museum) : the aim is to design a tour where descriptions are crafted with a lexicon that mirrors the sensory experiences of visitors with disabilities. This study underscores the potential of cognitive linguistics to create meaningful and inclusive cultural experiences.
Considering the growing number of students with Special Educational Needs in Italian universities, which the 2022 ANVUR statistical survey quantifies in 36.816 enrolled, affected primarily by Specific Learning Disorders, this study aims to discuss "accessible" teaching proposals for metalinguistic reflection activities. This is an essential skill to master any communicative system to be implemented during learning sessions of Portuguese as a foreign language, to stimulate the development of meta-lexical competence, since these students show difficulties in the permanent memorization of words, tools that are essential to negotiate contents during the communicative act. As the cognitive processing of information in Working Memory is rather tiring, especially the retrieval of abstract notions and lexical labels through inferential procedures, we present examples of possible activities that can promote meta-lexical reflection, developed for dyslexic or dysgraphic Italian-speaking students who study Portuguese at an elementary level (A(2)) by observing the problems related to the disorder, the provisions of the current legislation in Italy on school and academic inclusion and the principles of the i) Metacognitive Teaching, ii) Competency-based learning and iii) Lexical Approach. Starting from the reading of an authentic text, made didactically accessible through a process of morpho-syntactic and textual simplification, we illustrate basic examples of meta-lexical reflection exercises, based on "chunks" analyses-in particular of "multi-words" and "collocations"-, on the dimension of synonymy and the formation of word families, activities which stimulate the transfer process.
In this study, we analyze conversations between parents and children (aged 6 to 9) at the family mealtime to investigate the adults' use of deontic authority arguments. Within a corpus of 15 videorecordings of family interactions at the dinner table, we identified the deontic authority arguments put forward by parents and analyzed them by using the Critical Discussion Model (developed by the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation) and the Argumentum Model of Topics. The results indicate that parents generally refer to an adult as the source of authority during dinnertime conversations with their children. In most cases, this authority is represented by themselves (self-oriented arguments) and, less frequently, by another adult (hetero-oriented arguments). Moreover, the deontic authority arguments put forward by parents seem to be more effective when they clarify and share with the children the implicit premises underlying their arguments.
In January 2020, the World Health Organization declared the emergence of Covid-19 with governments worldwide subsequently advising wearing medical masks. This review seeks outline and explore the constraints imposed by face masks on both verbal and nonverbal communication, emphasizing the profound impact on sensitive populations (e.g., older adults, children). This includes examining consequences in terms of both intelligibility, listening effort, confidence and performance monitoring. Finally, we will discuss practical measures to ensure effective communication in both clinical contexts and daily life, focusing on protective equipment options and self-regulation strategies.
Face masks have been used for a long time as a sanitary measure, and the communication challenges they pose are nothing new. During the global COVID-19 pandemic face masks became ubiquitous, unveiling their impact on communication to everyone. These challenges were particularly pronounced for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals. For DHH individuals using vocal languages, obscuring lip-reading, facial expressions and nonverbal cues with face masks can seriously hinder their linguistic, communicative and social interactions. A similar problematics emerged also forDHH individuals who rely on sign language to communicate, because covering the mouth and lips subtracts information from the sign. Since face masks are still used in many contexts (e.g., medical care) and potentially represent a threat for wellbeing and health, in this special issue we will delve into the multifaceted impact of face masks on the communication abilities of DHH individuals, using either vocal or sign languages.
center dot Children with sensorineural hearing loss can be effectively rehabilitated using hearing aids or cochlear implants, depending on the severity of the impairment. However, even "star pa- tients" commonly experience listening effort and fatigue, especially in adverse conditions such as in the presence of competing noise or multitaskers, typically occurring in classroom environments and social activities, where most of the learning process takes place. Measures of listening efforts and fatigue include objective and subjective ones. Among the latter, questionnaires have the advantage of being relatively easy to administer and giving a comprehensive, retrospective appraisal over a considerable time span. The present work aims to give an overview of instrumental measures and questionnaires for the assessment of listening effort and fatigue in school-aged children, with a special focus on the Listening Inventory For Education- Revised and the Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale- Pediatrics.
Children's communication often occurs under suboptimal conditions, such as when speech is masked by noise. While hearing children can adapt to these situations, noise remains a significant barrier to communication for children with hearing loss. Moving from the Ease of Lan- guage Understanding (ELU) model, which describes speech processing as a verbal working-memory (WM)-based system, we conducted a pilot trial to test an assessment protocol to investigate the ef- fects of noise on the verbal WM performance of children with cochlear implants (CI). Five cochlear implanted children and 5 normally-hearing (NH) age-matched children (8-11 years) performed an auditory attention task and auditory digit span forward and backward tasks in a soundproof cabin under controlled quiet and babble noise conditions. Behavioral (response accuracy), self-report, and psychophysiological (pupil dilation) measures were used to evaluate their performance and cognitive effort in noise. At the behavioral level, CI children performed worse than NH children in both acous- tic conditions. Although no significant effects of acoustic condition (quiet/noise) were observed for either group, CI children's pupil dilation measures revealed greater cognitive effort in noise. These preliminary findings suggest the need to integrate pupillometric measures in the assessment of CI children's performance in noise.
center dot Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) seem to struggle with the syntactic complexity of their speech, especially subordination. Nevertheless, gestures can enhance the use of more complex syntactic structures. Guessing games can be a playful device that facilitates this gesture-speech complexifi cation. Seventeen children with DLD aged 7 to i0, and i7 age-matched controls were video-recorded in two different situations : a guessing game played with one of their parents and spontaneous conversation. Syntactic complexity was analyzed according to clause types, and gestures according to their form. Results showed that, while TD children complexified more their speech during the conversation, no differences were found during the guessing game in terms of clause types. However, the guessing game led children with DLD to use more gestures and more complex utterances, especially subordinate clauses, which were also more articulated with gestures. This finding highlights the beneficial role of gesture in creating syntactic complexity and the contribution of a new playful device that can also facilitate this complexity.
center dot In the present article, the challenges faced by deaf signing ' adult students when acquiring a second vocal language (L2) through a second modality (M2) are explored, together with a bimodal bilingual approach inspired by Battista (2013) for teaching foreign vocal languages to deaf signing learners. The study presents a case where a multimodal, deaf-centric approach was adopted, aligning with the strengths and needs of a deaf-signing student, as suggested by Fontana (2015). The approach involved collaborative efforts and negotiations between the student, their teachers, interpreters, and tutors to identify focus areas for an English tutoring course that integrates elements from the Purposeful-Concurrent-Use and Translanguaging models (Gyrate 2012), along with a visual approach using images (Battista 2013). Preliminary results showcase the effectiveness of the bimodal bilingual approach, evident in the improvement in short-term vocabulary retention, as the student began using LIS to recall newly acquired English vocabulary or reflect on grammar tasks. These ini-- tial findings highlight the efficacy of a multimodal L2 teaching approach.
Words and gestures are semiotic acts that build up our everyday social interactions. The semiotic resources of our body underpin language, and several papers from the field of gesture studies, psycholinguistics, and philosophy call for a language model incorporating all the visible actions engaged when speaking. In this study, we will use this broad approach to investigate action verbs in spoken Italian. In particular, we address the semantic role of representational gestures in describing actions, looking at the gesture-speech relationship. Fifteen Italian speakers watched and described forty-five videos, showing different actions grouped into five semantic domains. Results show that gestures tend to provide specific information on single action events. Still, it was possible to identify general action gestures (i.e. a gesture used to represent different action types in the same semantic domain). Moreover, representational gestures were frequently used to add information to the speech, specifically about manner and spatial aspects. Nevertheless, qualitative results point out the relevant role of equivalent gestures within linguistic redundancy. The conclusions emphasize the significance of gestures in the meaning-making process.
