Research Talk: Using Q-BEx as a triage tool for flagging risks of language impairment in bilingual children
- Date
- Wednesday 6 November 2024, 14:00-15:00
- Location
- Clothworkers North Building LT (Cinema) (2.31) + hybrid
You are warmly invited to join us for the following research talk. All welcome.
Speakers: Prof Cécile De Cat and Dr Elliot Holmes
Using Q-BEx as a triage tool for flagging risks of language impairment in bilingual children
Q-BEx (“Quantifying Bilingual Experience”) is an online questionnaire, available in 28 languages, which produces reports on children’s experience and proficiency in up to three languages. This presentation focuses on two aspects of the report that can be useful for teachers or speech and language therapists: the Red Flag score (to identify children at risk of language impairment) and the Richness score (to estimate the quality of the child’s exposure to each language).
We present an ongoing study evaluating the usefulness of the Q-BEx Red Flag score as a triage tool to flag children at risk of language impairment. That study is part of ESLEC (“Early Language Screening for Every Child”), a joint initiative of the NHS and the Department for Education in England seeking to improve the early identification of language support needs and reduce the rate of unnecessary specialist referrals, thereby increasing workforce capacity.
Literacy activities are currently an important component of the Richness scores. As a side-line to the ELSEC evaluation, we are conducting a small-scale ethnographic study of Richness, aiming to identify the counterpart of literacy activities in families where the Heritage Language doesn’t exist in written form, or where the parents are illiterate in the Heritage Language.