| Abstract [eng] |
The objective of this master thesis is to examine language disorders in speech-impaired children from multilingual families, and to contribute to the development of intervention methods to improve the language and speech development of these children. The main reason for bilingualism and multilingualism in children and families today is migration and living in new socio-cultural environment. Hypothesis: speech therapist, recognizes multilingual children’s language disorders and focuses using the appropriate methods of assistance, in collaboration with parents and speech therapist’s professionals, not only helping the child to overcome language problems, but also enhancing his communication skills. The work is based on partially structured interviews with eight parents of multilingual children with speech and language disorders using Skype program. Information obtained from these interviews were analyzed and used to develop a language and speech improvement model. The most important empirical conclusions that were drawn are: The characteristics of speech disorders in bilingual and multilingual children do not differ from speech disorders occurring in monolingual children. However, the speech disorders of bilingual and multilingual children may be more pronounced and more complex than those of monolingual children. Therefore, the treatment of speech disorders of bilingual and multilingual children may be more difficult, more complex, and more time-consuming than the treatment of speech disorders in monolingual children. The results underline that multilingual children most often have difficulty correctly pronouncing speech sounds, applying the rules of grammar, using words correctly, and developing vocabulary. The language, that a bilingual child usually hears and uses in his daily life, will become dominant language in his life. The language he hears and uses less often, will become a second language, which may lose its importance in later stages of the child‘s development. |
