Study day on language disorders in a multilingual context

University Paul Valery Montpellier 3

Montpellier, February 7, 2025

In France, between 15% and 20% of school-age children experience difficulties at school. Around 8% of children who fail at school have language and/or learning disorders (Habib, 2014; Zorman et al., 2004). Language and learning disorders are distinguished according to whether they are the result of natural acquisition, such as a mother tongue, or explicit learning, such as reading. These disorders appear at an early age and have personal, social and/or academic repercussions. They form part of the neurodevelopmental disorders described in the DSM-5.
The theme of this study day is oral and/or written language disorders in a plurilingual context. By plurilingualism, we mean having access to at least two languages and using them in daily life.
identifying, diagnosing and re-educating successive plurilingual children with language and/or learning disorders are all elements at the heart of a necessary reflection for professionals working in contact with plurilingual publics (teachers and future teachers, speech therapists). Several questions arise:

• How can we distinguish between “typical” difficulties, inherent in the appropriation of a language other than the language of first socialization from an oral and/or written language disorder ?

• What are the benchmarks for identifying atypical oral and/or written language development in multilingual children?

• What tools should be used to assess plurilingual children for whom French is not their mother tongue? How can a diagnosis be made?

• What should be done when oral and/or written language disorders occur in a plurilingual context?

Through the 3 axes proposed and developed below, this study day aims to disseminate and pool multidisciplinary knowledge on oral/written language disorders in a plurilingual context, drawing on data from language sciences, educational sciences, speech therapy, psychology and HMI ergonomics.

Focus 1: Detection and screening

• How can we distinguish between “typical” difficulties, inherent in the appropriation of a language other than the language of first socialization, and oral and/or written language disorders?

• What are the benchmarks for identifying atypical oral and/or written language development in a plurilingual child?

Typical acquisition of a language other than the language of first socialization after infancy takes between three and five years (Jia and Fuse, 2007; Paradis, 2007; Oller and Eilers, 2002). How quickly this language is appropriated depends on many factors, both internal and external to the speaker. The age at which L2 acquisition begins, the level of development of the original language at the start of appropriation (Cummins, 2000), the typological distance between languages (Flege and Fletcher, 1992), the degree of language transparency (Seymour, Aro and Erskine, 2003), linguistic aptitude (linked to IQ), motivation, personality (Moyer, 1999, 2014), the quantity and quality of linguistic exposure and, more generally, 

contexts of appropriation are all factors influencing the acquisition of the target language. This makes it difficult to estimate a duration at the end of which one could speak of sufficient “fluency”, and linguistic components (e.g. phonology, morphology, syntax) are not acquired at the same speed by all individuals (Sauvage, 2015). In the majority of cases, the difficulties that learners may encounter are linked to the appropriation of the language in progress: they are transient and will be overcome in varying amounts of time. In other cases, difficulties are persistent, and may be related not only to current appropriation, but also to an instrumental disorder.
When the child's mother tongue is not spoken or written, it is difficult to ascertain whether difficulties exist in all languages, whether certain difficulties identified in L2 are attributable to the typological distance between languages, or whether they are linked to the influence of other languages on L2. According to Sanson (2010: 52), if there is a language disorder, the alterations cannot be limited to a single language: “if the delay (...) only concerns the language of the host country, we could ask ourselves the question of a less instrumental disorder, more related to difficulties linked to the migration situation.” Ideally, therefore, we should be able to approach the child's two languages. Research (Ganschow and Sparks, 2000, Genesee et al., 2011) shows that strengths and weaknesses in linguistic processing of phonology, orthography, syntax and semantics are transferred between languages.

With regard to dyslexia, phonological skills and rapid naming have been identified as strong predictors of risk in a large number of languages irrespective of their characteristics (Ramus et al., 2013). Cognitively, the profile of L2 dyslexic children would resemble that of monolingual dyslexic children (Genesee, Paradis and Crago, 2011), although typological differences between languages affect L2 oral and written development (Geva, 2006).

Focus 2: Assessment and diagnosis

• What tools should be used to assess plurilingual children for whom French is not their mother tongue? How should a diagnosis be made?

When it comes to assessing and diagnosing children for whom French is not their mother tongue, professionals face major obstacles. First of all, in both monolingual and multilingual situations, the profiles of dysphasia and/or developmental dyslexia are varied, and making a diagnosis is complex (Chabanal, 2023).
In France, the majority of speech therapists are monolingual, and those who speak a language other than French are not prepared to assess all the languages spoken by their patients. The mother tongue is difficult to grasp, only “informally in the best of cases where the examiner [has] some knowledge of the language” (Kohl et al., 2008: 593), and sometimes not at all.
On the other hand, there are very few assessment tools adapted to a bi/plurilingual population (Stow and Dodd, 2003; Ferré and Dos Santos, 2014). Bijleveld et al. (2014: 42) point out that the lack of tools
forces most speech therapists to use conventional tests, developed and calibrated with a French-speaking population. However, the assessment of a single language cannot be representative of a bi- or multilingual child's level of language development.
Plurilingual children may find themselves at a disadvantage, with scores below the norm: it's difficult to know what to expect from a plurilingual child, based on norms established for and on monolinguals. There is a danger of both over-diagnosis and under-diagnosis. Overdiagnosis could be due, for example, to misinterpretation of the transfer of certain characteristics from heritage languages to French, similar test scores or errors between plurilinguals without disorders and monolinguals with language disorders, or a more restricted lexicon in French. What's more, test items are language-dependent (phonologically, for example), and culturally, some items may not fit in with the child's culture.

Finally, diagnosis is still difficult for a number of other reasons. For example, anamnestic data may be insufficient if the child's family and friends do not speak French.
A survey by Bijleveld and Estienne (2018) was carried out among 118 French-speaking speech therapists, living in France and Belgium, concerning their professional relationship with multilingualism. The results show that 80% of them said they had only had between 0 and 10 hours of bilingualism courses during their studies, and 83% said they didn't feel sufficiently trained to deal with bilingualism. Yet their patients are bi/plurilingual in 38% of cases.  70% of speech therapists surveyed said they found it more difficult to assess a bi/plurilingual child than a monolingual child, for three main reasons: the language barrier, the difficulty of making a differential diagnosis between language delay and second-language acquisition delay, and the lack of tests and standards adapted to plurilinguals. 

Focus 3: Remediation/rehabilitation

• What to do when oral and/or written language disorders occur in a multilingual context?

Early treatment of language and/or learning disorders is a public health issue. The consequences of these disorders on daily life, school learning and professional integration can be significant, but prevention and appropriate intervention can help mitigate them. Following the laws of 2005, 2013 and 2019, and since the OECD's “Horizon 2030 education” declaration (2018), inclusion has become a major objective of education in France. All learners have the right to have access to knowledge, and it is essential to think, for audiences of plurilingual children with language disorders, about arrangements that enable everyone to develop their knowledge and skills in the classroom, as well as speech therapy support and care (Topouzkhanian, 2024).
However, there are few tools for the remediation/education of oral and/or written language disorders aimed at plurilingual students for whom French is the L2 (Dalle, 2020; Dalle and Sauvage, 2021). Demand is high among teachers and healthcare professionals.
Akinci (2011: 265) points out that

Starting from the widespread belief that monolingualism is the normal and natural case of language development, and that any other developmental path may involve risks, there are many negative reactions, revealing the extent of the lack of understanding of this issue. Not only in the literature, but also in the training of future speech therapists, bilingualism and bi-culturality are two notions that have only recently emerged.

Take the survey by Bijleveld and Estienne (2018) cited above: 40% of speech therapists surveyed advise parents to limit themselves to speaking one language at home. However, a bilingual subject is not the sum of two monolinguals, and his or her language repertoire must be taken into account in its entirety. For bilingual children, many studies show that it's important to exploit the resources “already there” and L1, which represents “an additional source of learning on which both teacher and student can draw” (Auger and Le Pichon, 2021: 39). While the development of second-language language skills is crucial for learning to read and write, the cognitive and linguistic competencies required for this learning are based on the same processing factors for all languages (Cummins, 2000), which also means that these competencies influence learning to write in L2. There is no permeability between languages, and transfers take place. Auger and Le Pichon (2021: 39) point out that “students make faster progress when their mother tongue plays a role in teaching”.

Between 2019 and 2022, the serious game Superlexia (Ouherrou et al., 2021, Ouherrou, 2022) to help dyslexic Arabic-speaking pupils learn to read was designed and tested. In the bilingual Superlexia research project launched in 2024, the aim is to adapt this serious game to help bilingual Arabic/French dyslexic pupils with French as their L2 learn to read in French, by targeting the difficulties that these children may encounter (Bellocchi and Gogic, 2022) and proposing appropriate activities.

References

Akinci, M.-A. (2011). Orthophonie, bilinguisme et immigration : Le cas des enfants bilingues franco-turcs en France. In book : Le trouble du langage écrit : Regards croisés (Publisher: Ortho-édition, p. 265‑292)

Zorman, M., Lequette, C., Pouget, G. (2004) Dyslexies : intérêt d’un dépistage et d’une prise en charge précoce à l’école. In: metz-lutz mn, demont e, seegmuller c, de agostini m, bruneau n, editors. Développement cognitif et troubles des apprentissages : évaluer, comprendre, rééduquer et prendre en charge. Marseille:Solal, 245-270