Please note that this talk is on a Tuesday, instead of he regular Friday afternoon.

Language Mixing and Developmental Language Disorder: Effects and Patterns

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) face challenges in language processing and production, particularly in multilingual contexts. Language mixing is common in multilingual communication, yet it is often misunderstood: mixed input is sometimes thought to hinder development, and children’s mixed-language output may be mistaken for a sign of difficulty.

This talk reviews research on DLD, multilingualism, and language mixing, drawing first on studies of typically developing (TD) children and then on recent work with children with DLD. It addresses two questions: How does mixed-language input relate to children’s language outcomes? And what explains individual differences in their language mixing? I will discuss findings on parental language mixing and children’s outcomes in the home and societal languages, comparing TD children and children with DLD. I will also consider how social, linguistic, and cognitive factors—and their interactions—shape children’s mixing in production. Finally, I will examine the strengths and limitations of studying language mixing in experimental and naturalistic settings and highlight directions for future research.