Until
now most speech therapists believe that children with an auditive or
communicative disability such as deafness, Down’s syndrome or autism
should be brought up in one language. Drs. Mirjam Blumenthal (picture), researcher at the Royal Kentalis, proves the opposite with her presentation!
As an example she showed a video of a seven year old who has been deaf since the age of one due to meningitis but who speaks and understands three languages with ease. Even though the boy is an exceptional case, it illustrates Mirjam Blumenthal’s theory.
Blumenthal was one of the 40 specialists participating in
the Poliglotti4.eu expert seminar. The seminar was organised by the
Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language
Learning, part of the Fryske Akademy, on 9 and 10 February in
Leeuwarden/Ljouwert within the framework of the European Poliglotti4.eu
project. Experts from all over Europe came together in the capital of
the bilingual province Fryslân to discuss aspects of early language
learning. One of the main outcomes is that the earlier one starts with
more languages, the better it is, and that holds for everyone.
Click here for pictures of the Expert Seminar