Dr. Megan Gross is a speech-language pathologist, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the director of the Bilingual Language Development Lab. She explains why the “difference versus disorder” framework is a helpful start but may oversimplify a child's language experience, instead encouraging a move towards a “disorder within diversity” lens. Megan describes how a language disorder looks in Spanish and how shifts in language dominance over time can impact the presentation of a language disorder. She encourages us to not view bilinguals as a separate group, but as individuals on a huge spectrum of language experience. Megan also talks to us about her community-based partnerships. You'll want to take notes when listening to this one!

Resources:

-Megan’s lab website: ⁠https://blogs.umass.edu/bld/⁠ and Instagram: @umass_bldlab

-Disorder within Diversity framework: https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2018_LSHSS-CLSLD-17-0156

-Bedore, Peña et al. production of English grammatical forms across levels of English experience among Spanish-English dual-language learners https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2017_LSHSS-17-0027

-Castilla-Earls et al. re: effects of shifting dominance on grammaticality https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31112666/

-LITMUS tools for evaluations in different languages: https://www.bi-sli.org/litmus-tools

-Portland State resource: https://sites.google.com/pdx.edu/multicsd/home

-Charles Sturt in Australia also has a great resource: http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/languages

-MSHA Diversity Advisory Group draft recommendations for multilingual evaluations document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZzKngoh95c5qk7JhOxsAdhVo0IAwo3inTAtCGocp2s/edit?usp=sharing

-CBPR example, shared by Dr. Christina Nicolaidis at the last ASHA Convention during the Researcher-Academic Town Meeting: AASPIRE (academic autism spectrum partnership in research and education) https://aaspire.org/inclusion-toolkit/participatory-research/

-Community partners that Megan works with: Nayroby Rosa Soriano, Director of Community Engagement at OneHolyoke CDC https://www.oneholyoke.org/community-engagement/ and Enlace de Familias https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064582222801, where Megan’s lab hosts the Supporting Families Raising Bilingual Children group

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