[lg policy] calls: Let the Children Speak: Learning of Critical Language Skills

Thu Jan 7 16:03:03 UTC 2010

Let the Children Speak: Learning of Critical Language Skills

Date: 22-Jan-2010 - 24-Jan-2010
Location: London, United Kingdom
Contact: Angeliek van Hout
Contact Email: Costrug.nl
Meeting URL: http://www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/cost/

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition

Meeting Description:

Two children in every classroom across Europe suffer from Specific Language
Impairment (SLI), meaning that they have problems learning language.
Language is
one of the key skills that children need in order to succeed in
education and in
later life; without it, children may fail to reach their potential. Early
assessment of language skills, to identify children who have SLI, is essential.
Yet migration and multilingualism may make it difficult to assess whether
children have the necessary language skills to access the school
curriculum, and
diagnosing SLI across Europe is a challenge. SLI is costing Europe
more than 250
billion Euros a year. That's equivalent to 1% of GDP, enough to bail out a
medium-sized bank. Like the world banking crisis, it must be addressed at an
international level. In a unique initiative, scientists from 25 European
countries (and close neighbours), and representing 25 languages (covering the
major European language families: Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Baltic, Greek and
Romani and also Finno-Ugric and Semitic) have worked together to
investigate the
critical language skills that children need to learn. We have created an
assessment that is comparable across languages, with 13 subtests that test
critical skills in grammar, semantics and pragmatics. This work allows us to
assess whether a child has the key language abilities needed for education and
life-long learning in languages across the EU, and can serve as a template for
other languages too.

This work provides the necessary platform for politicians, professionals and
scientists alike to take up the reins to collaboratively address the severe
socio-economic cost of our children's lost potential. We are therefore bringing
together a unique team of experts from across the EU - politicians,
ducationalists, health specialists, scientists and parents to address this
challenge at a ground-breaking international conference.

Programme

Please see the full programme at the following URL:

http://cost.zas.gwz-berlin.de/cost/london/program.html

Please visit the website for our conference at the following URL:

http://cost.zas.gwz-berlin.de/cost/london/final-london.html

Friday 22nd January 2010

12:00 - 14:00
Registration
Chair: Daniel Glaser (The Wellcome Trust)

13:45 - 14:15
Welcome: Uli Sauerland and Heather van der Lely

14:15 - 14:45
TBC The right Hon Mr Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Families and
Schools, Introduced by Linda Lascelles, CEO Association for all Speech Impaired
Children

14:45 - 15:05
Abby Beverly, The Perspective of an Adult with SLI Living with a Language
Impairment, In discussion with Victoria Joffe (City University London, UK)

15:05 - 15:55
Stephen Crain, Professor of Cognitive Science MACCS Macquarie University,
Australia, Investigating Child Language from a 'Biolinguistic' Perspective

15:55 - 16:50
Coffee Break

Poster Session I

Interactive Sessions

Demonstrations and participation in the COST A33 language experiments

16:50 - 17:00
Jo Eddings, The Perspective of a Parent of a Child with SLI

17:00 - 18:30
Panel Discussion
Also open to those attending the Reception
Moderated and chaired by Daniel Glaser (The Wellcome Trust)

Panel Members:

1. Heather van der Lely, COST A33 Vice Chair (Harvard University, USA) The
scientific perspective
2. Virginia Beardshaw, CEO I CAN: The Children's Communication Charity
3. TBC: Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU Commissioner for Research,
Innovation and Science
4. Hazel Roddam, Deputy Chair of the Royal College of Speech and Language
Therapists, UK

Panel Discussion
General Discussion and Audience Participation

18:30 - 21:00
COST A33 Reception
At The Wellcome Trust Medicine Now Gallery
Conference participants plus Ambassadors of all 25 countries involved in COST
A33, and other professionals and politicians from the EU

Saturday 23rd January 2010

08:30 - 09:00
Registration
Chair: Dr Michael Thomas, (Birkbeck, University of London, UK)

09:00 - 10:15
Symposium 1: Coordinator Spyridoula Varlokosta (Athens University, Greece),
Children's Production and Comprehension of Pronouns across Languages

João Costa (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal), Production of Pronouns -
Designing a Crosslinguistic Experiment and Crosslinguistic Findings

Maria Teresa Guasti (University Milano-Bicocca, Italy), Production of Partitive
Pronouns across Languages

Maria Teresa Guasti (University Milano-Bicocca, Italy), Children's
Comprehension
of Pronouns in European Languages

10:15 - 10:30
Susan Edwards (Reading University, UK). Discussion by Professional SLT

10:30 - 11:00
Coffee Break

Poster Session II

11:00 - 12:00
Symposium 2: Coordinator Angeliek van Hout (University of Groningen,
Netherlands), Acquiring Tense and Aspect

Angeliek van Hout (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Learning to
Understand
Aspect across Languages

Bart Hollebrandse (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Acquiring Tense
Crosslinguistically: Comprehension and Production

12:00 - 12:15
Jane Stokes (MRCSLT University of Greenwich, UK) Discussion by Professional

12:15 - 14:30
Lunch

Interaction session

Poster Session II (continued)

14:30 - 16:00
Symposium 3: Coordinator Naama Friedmann (Tel Aviv University,
Israel), Children's Questions about Questions

Naama Friedmann (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Introduction: on wh
Questions and
Relative Clauses in Typically Developing and Language Impaired Children

Heather van der Lely (Harvard University, USA), How do 5 year olds Understand
Questions: Differences in Languages across Europe?

Petra Schulz (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany), Who Answered What
to Whom? On Children's Understanding of Exhaustive Questions

Naama Friedman (Tel Aviv University, Israel), The Production of
Relative Clauses
by 5 Year Olds across Multiple Languages: ''They Prefer to be the Children Who
do not Produce Object Relatives''

15:45 - 16:00
Virginia Gathercole (Centre for Multilingualism), Theory and Therapy,
University
of Bangor, Wales). Discussant.

16:00 - 17:00
Coffee Break

Poster session III

Interactive Session

17:00 - 17:30
TBC Androulla Vassiliou EU Commissioner for Education, Culture and Youth
Multilingualism Keynote address

17:30 - 17:45
General Discussion: Led by Daniel Glaser

17:45 - 18:30
Management Meeting: MC COST members only

19:15
Conference Dinner
The Crypt in Ely Place (off Holborn Circus) (Bleeding Heart Yard Restaurant)

Sunday 24th January 2010

Chair: Dr Ineta Daba?inskien? (Vytautas Magnus University Lithuania)

09:00 - 10:15
Symposium 4: Coordinator Sharon Armon-Lotem, (Bar-Ilan University, Israel),
Understanding passive sentences

Sharon Armon-Lotem (Bar-Ilan University, Israel), An Introduction - Why Study
the Acquisition of Passive Sentences?

Kazuko Yatsushiro (ZAS, Berlin), Short and Long Passives in 5 year olds: a
Crosslinguistic Perspective
Sari Kunnari (University of Oulu, Finland), The Development of the Passive

Kristine Jensen de López (Aalborg University, Denmark), Understanding Passive
Sentences by Children with Specific Language Impairments: a Cross-linguistic
Comparison

10:15 - 10:30
Julie Dockrell (Institute of Education, UK) Discussion from an Educational
Perspective

10:30 - 11:00
Coffee Break

Poster session III (continued)

11:00 - 12:15
Symposium 5 Coordinator Ken Drozd (Hanze University, Groningen, Netherlands),
Quantifiers and Implicatures

Ken Drozd (Hanze University, Groningen, Netherlands), Some Ambassadors Attended
the Conference: Understanding Quantifiers and Implicatures

Napoleon Katsos (Cambridge University, UK), What can the Acquisition of
Quantification Tell Us about Assessing Language Development? Evidence from
Crosslinguistic, Bilingual and SLI research

Arve Asbjørnsen (University of Bergen, Norway), Challenges in Test Development:
Some Psychometric Properties of the Quantification Tasks

12:15 - 12:30
Deidre Martin (University of Birmingham, UK). Discussion: an Educational and
Professional Perspective

12:30 - 13:00
Tom Roeper (University of Massachusetts, USA), Conference Discussant

13:00 - 13:05
Presentation of Poster Prize
Conference Close

13:05 - 14:00
Lunch

http://linguistlist.org/issues/21/21-57.html

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