Ian Gordon Fellow Public Lecture 2026: Rethinking language delay in multilingual children: Towards more equitable assessment

Speaker

Dr Rowena Garcia is a researcher in the Language Development and Multilingualism research group at the Leibniz‑Centre General Linguistics in Berlin, Germany, and a visiting professor in the Department of Speech Pathology at the University of the Philippines Manila.

Her work explores how children acquire and adults process understudied languages like Tagalog, using naturalistic language samples and methods such as eye-tracking. She also collaborates on developing language assessments for Tagalog speakers, drawing on her background as a speech-language pathologist in the Philippines.

Abstract

Most children worldwide grow up with more than one language, yet identifying language delays in these children remains challenging. In Aotearoa New Zealand, for example, children may learn Te Reo Māori alongside English, using each language in different contexts. Such multilingual patterns are typical, but differences from monolingual norms can be misinterpreted, and genuine delays may be overlooked. These challenges stem partly from the disproportionate research focus on English speaking children in North America and the lack of appropriate assessment tools for multilinguals. This talk examines these gaps and presents findings from fieldwork in the Philippines on Tagalog acquisition in multilingual environments. It also discusses developing more equitable assessment tools and improving support for multilingual children, families, and clinicians.

This lecture is free to attend.

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