CLINICAL LINGUISTICS 2

The course is included among the main learning activities of the Master degree in Language Sciences which allow the student to acquire the methodological tools provided by the most recent linguistic theories useful to analyse and describe the linguistic difficulties observed in populations with language disorders.
The course aims at providing students with the basic knowledge, the methods and the methodology for the realization of experimental studies and data collection. A further aim is to provide some tools useful for the linguistic analysis of comprehension and production data obtained from individuals with dyslexia.

1. Knowledge and understanding
The student knows some tools and methodological aspects necessary for the development of linguistic experiments: formulation of reseach questions, identification of the linguistic aspects that need to be investigated, definition of the experimental sample, presentation of the stimuli and the tools used to investigate the linguistic aspect, quantitative and qualitative data anaysis.
The student knows and understands the linguistic theories and hypotheses that account for some linguistic phenomena observed in comprehension and production by individuals with language disorders.
The student knows the linguistic difficulties that people with dyslexia (children, adolescents, and adults) encounter in the acquisition of their oral language.
The student is introduced to some standardized and non-standardized linguistic tools used for assessing the linguistic competence in Italian in people with language disorders.

2. Applying knowledge and understanding
The student knows how to use the linguistic terminology and the tools of analysis of formal linguistics to describe the language difficulties of people with dyslexia.
The student is able to apply the acquired knowledge during the course to develop experimental research, and collect and analyse new linguistic data.

3. Making judgements
The student is able to formulate and argue hypotheses on the basis of the knowledge acquired during the course.
The student is able to critically analyze new data on production and comprehension collected from people with dyslexia.

4. Communication:
The student is able to present the hypotheses and the linguistic phenomena discussed during the course using the correct linguistic terminology.
The student is able to write a short report indicating aims, methods and methodology of an experimental research, results and data analysis, discussion.
The student is able to interact with the peers and the professor in a critical and respectful way.

5. Learning skills
The student is able to develop critical thinking.
The student is able to look for and read both the references mentioned in the course program and new references necessary to study some phenomena concerning the linguistic competence of people with dyslexia.

Knowledge of linguistics and syntactic theory.

The course focuses the research methodology in linguistics will be presented and students will be familiarised with some tools that make it possible to carry out quantitative and qualitative analyses of data collected through the use of standardized and non-standardized linguistic tests. Moreover during the course, some studies that investigate the linguistic competence of people (children, adolescents and adults) with dyslexia will be presented, and particular attention will be given to the difficulties that these people experience with some complex syntactic structures of the Italian language (relative clauses, interrogative sentences, passive sentences, and sentences containing clitic pronouns).

Topics for the methodological part concerning data collection and analysis:
- types of research
- the variables
- how to organize data in a spreadsheet
- populations and samples
- descriptive statistics (mean, mode, median, variability and measures of dispersion)
- z-scores
- binomial distribution
- parametric and non-parametric tests
- correlation analyses
- presentation of some statistical software

Topics for the analysis of the linguistic competence in people with dyslexia
- what is dyslexia?
- types of dyslexia
- comorbility between dyslexia and SLI
- language difficulties shown by people with dyslexia (use of clitic pronouns and articles, relative clauses, interrogative sentences, passive sentences)

Lowie W. & Seton B. (2013) Essential Statistics for Applied Linguistics. Palgrave Macmillan.


Cardinaletti, A., Volpato, F. (2015). On the comprehension and production of passive and relative clauses by university students with dyslexia. In Di Domenico, E. Hamann, C., Matteini, S. (Eds.), Structures, Strategies and Beyond John Benjamins- Linguistik Atuell Series.

Friedmann, N., & Coltheart, M.. Types of developmental dyslexia. In A. Bar-On, & D. Ravid (Eds.), Handbook of communication disorders: Theoretical, empirical, and applied linguistics perspectives. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton

Guasti, M.T., (2013). Oral skills deficit in children with Developmental Dyslexia, in S. Stavrakaki, Lalioti M. e Konstantinopoulou P. (a cura di), Advances in Language Acquisition, Cambridge Scholars Press, Newcastle, 416-424.

Guasti, M.T.; Branchini, C.; Vernice, M.; Barbieri, L.; Arosio, F.(2015). Language disorders in children with Developmental Dyslexia , Specific Language Impairment. Current trends in research, Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 35-55.

Pivi, M.; Del Puppo, G.; Cardinaletti, A. The elicited oral production of Italian restrictive relative clauses and cleft sentences in typically developing children and children with developmental dyslexia , Acquisition of Romance Languages, De Gruyter Mouton, vol. 52, pp. 231-262

Talli I., Sprenger-Charolles L., Stavrakaki S. (2016). Specific language impairment and developmental dyslexia: What are the boundaries? Data from Greek children Research in Developmental Disabilities 49–50, 339–353.

Zachou A., Partesana E., Tenca e. , Guasti M.T. (2013). Production and comprehension of direct object clitics and definite articles by italian children with developmental dyslexia, in S. Stavrakaki, Lalioti M. e Konstantinopoulou P. (a cura di), Advances in Language Acquisition, Cambridge Scholars Press, Newcastle, 464-471.


Other materials will be suggested during the course.

The exam consists in writing a report on the basis of some data and following the instructions specified in the exam sheet.
The report is composed of the following sections:
- presentation of the difficulties of people with dyslexia in the use of the linguistic structures discussed during the course
- presentation of the group of participants
- analysis and description of the main characteristics of the linguistic stimuli
- presentation of results and data analysis
- discussion of results highlighting how linguistic theories may account for the linguistic data found in the groups of participants

Face-to-face lessons and the materials available in the Moodle platform.

Italian

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development