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Recommendations on on Bilingualism and Bilingual Exposure for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)*

 

Studies in the last 10 years found that children with autism who came from multilingual families performed similarly to monolingual children with ASD across various language skills (see Drysdale, van der Meer, & Kagohara, 2012; Hambly & Fombonne, 2012; Kay-Raining Bird, Genesee, & Verhoeven, 2016; and Lund, Kohlmeier, & Duran, 2017).

Therefore, it is recommended to support the home language of the families of children with autism (and other developmental disorders), which is Arabic for most of the time, while we continue to provide services in English and Arabic at the center.

Children  will be put at a disadvantage if they are exposed to one language only. Arabic is the language of Emirati culture and heritage and its mastery will enhance the social integration of our students with their communities. Moreover, studies found that parents’ native language input will support student’s learning of the second language (Elin Thordardottir, 2010). English on the other hand is very important as it is a main language of instruction in public and private schools in UAE and children will need it in order to interact with the wider community.

In the following we summarize our recommendations:

Recommendations for Families

  1. Most studies of bilingualism in children with autism did not find any negative effects of bilingualism on language development. Some professionals may recommend having children with autism exposed to one language only, but this recommendation is not supported by any evidence. It is against the recommendations of many professional organizations, such as ASHA (the American Speech-Language, and Hearing Association, 2017), Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (CASLPA, 1997); and the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP, Fredman, 2011).
  2. Studies on bilingualism have shown that the best model for bilingualism is when both parents speak the home language (Arabic), while the student is exposed to the school language (English) at school (De Houwer, 2007). Another good model is when both parents speak the home language and one of them also speaks the school language (De Houwer, 2007).
  3. Studies have shown that parental input is one of the best predictors of bilingual success. Therefore, it is important that children get enough high quality input (native or near native) at home in their home language (UAE Arabic). This will enhance the bilingual services we provide to our students at MRC-NECC. Therefore, it is crucial that parents and other family members spend a good amount of time interacting with children with autism using the home language (Emirati Arabic).
  4. It is important that families speak to their children with autism in the same language they use with their other children. It is not advisable to speak to children with autism in one language (e.g., English), while speaking to siblings in another language (Arabic). Children with autism should be given the chance to participate in all family interactions.
  5. It is not recommended to change the home language of the family (Fredman, 2011). If the child’s stronger language is English, you can introduce Arabic gradually and praise them each time they use Arabic.
  6. Studies reported that bilingual intervention is preferred to monolingual intervention (CASLPA, 1997; Ebert, Kohnert, Pham, Disher, & Payesteh, 2014 ; Elin Thordardottir, 2010; Fredman, 2011; Kohnert et al., 2005).
  7. There is some emerging evidence that providing low quality language input (e.g., in ‘broken Arabic’ or ‘broken English”) could have some undesired effects on language development in children with autism (Hambly & Fombonne, 2012).

 

*These recommendations are valid for societies/communities where children are exposed on a regular basis to two languages (e.g., one language used at home/community and another language used in the wider community/school). An example is UAE students living in Abu Dhabi and going to an English speaking school and where English is also widely supported in the community. These recommendations are not valid for all children or communities.

 

References

  1. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2017). Bilingual service delivery. Retrieved fromhttp://www.asha.org/PRPSpecificTopic.aspx?folderid=8589935225&section=Key_Issues 
  2. Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists (CASLPA). (1997). Position paper on speech-language pathology and audiology in the multicultural, multilingual context. JSLPA. 
  3. De Houwer, A. (2007). Parental language input patterns and children’s bilingual use. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28: 411-424. 
  4. Drysdale, H., van der Meer, L, and Kagohara, D., (2012). Children with autism spectrum disorders from bilingual families: a systematic review. Review of Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders,2: 26-38. 
  5. Fredman, M. (2011). Recommendations for working with bilingual children-Prepared by the Multilingual Affairs Committee of IALP. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 58, 458-464. 
  6. Gonzalez‐Barrero, A.M, & Nadig, A. (2018). Bilingual children with autism spectrum disorders: the impact of amount of language exposure on vocabulary and morphological skills at school age. Autism Research, 11,:1667–78. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2023. 
  7. Hambly, C. & Fombonne, E. (2014). Factors influencing bilingual expressive vocabulary size in children with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 8: 1079-1089. 
  8. Hambly, C. & Fombonne, E. (2012). The impact of bilingual environments on language development in children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 1342–1352. 
  9. Kay-Raining Bird, E., Genesee, F., & Verhoeven, L. (2016). Survey of bilingualism in autism spectrum disorders. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 47:52–64. 
  10. Kohnert, K., Yim, Dongsun, Nett, K., Kan, P.F. & Duran, L. (2005). Intervention with linguistically diverse preschool children: A focus on developing home language(s). 
  11. Language, Speech, And Hearing Services In Schools, 36:251-263. Lund, E. M., Kohlmeier, T. L., & Durán, L. K. (2017). Comparative language development in bilingual and monolingual children with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review. Journal of Early Intervention, 39: 106-124.