Funded & Ongoing Projects
Mission
To develop best practices for the assessment and intervention of bilingual children and Spanish-speaking children at risk of language and academic difficulties. Specifically, we aim to
- Develop language interventions in the children's native language and English as second language
- Improve literacy outcomes in all the languages children speak
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Determine identifiers of language disorders in bilingual and Spanish-speaking children
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Differentiate language difference from language disorders in at risk children
- Train preschool personnel to optimize language development in English language learners
SSLIC Project - Spanish Screener for Language Impairment in Children
Restrepo, MA (PI); Gorin, J and Gray, S (CoPIs)
(Funded by IES, US Dept of Education, 2008 to 2012)Purpose
- To develop a screener that is easy to administer to identify primarily Spanish-speaking children at risk of language impairment
- For universal language screening of children in PreK and Kindergarten and for at risk children in 1st and 2nd grade
- Based on processing and linguistic characteristics of language impairment in Spanish speakers
DRIVES - Professional Development Grant
Restrepo, M. A. (PI) (Funded by HHS, 2008-2011) in collaboration with South West Human Development in Phoenix
Purpose
- To improve oral language skills in Latino children attending Head Start at South West Human Development through professional development training of personnel
- Use of dual language stimulation for oral language and emergent literacy skills
- DRIVES main techniques- Dialogic Reading, Inferencing Questioning,
Vocabulary Enhancement, Scaffolded Conversations, and ESL techniques.
PROLECIN - Fase 2
Promoción de la lectura inicial y prevención de las dificultades en la comprensión de lectura (Florez, R (PI), Restrepo, M.A. (COPI); Funded by Colciencias, Bogotá, Colombia, 2009-2010).
Purpose
- Intervention for low-income 5 year olds addressing emergent literacy, vocabulary, and abstract language to prevent reading comprehension difficulties.
VALE - Vocabulary and Abstract Language Enhancement
Restrepo, MA (PI) and Gray, S (CoPI) (Funded by IES, US Dept of Education, 2005 to 2009)Purpose
- Intervention in Kindergarten to improve reading comprehension in bilingual Latino children
- Develop a book reading and hands-on language intervention for Spanish-speaking kindergarten children to improve reading comprehension in 2nd and 3rd grade. Teach six tier-2 vocabulary words and 4 comprehension techniques a week
- Compare experimental and control interventions in English-only and in bilingual conditions
VOLAR - Vocabulary and Oral Language for Academic Readiness
Gutierrez-Clellen, V. (PI) and Restrepo, M. A. (CoPI) (IES, Summer 2006-2009)
- Develop an oral language intervention for Spanish-speaking preschool children with language disorders to increase vocabulary, MLU and comprehension through literacy and hands-on activities
- Compare experimental and control interventions in English-only and in bilingual conditions
- Evaluate the impact of the intervention in language, academic, social, and cognitive areas
Other Projects
- Language proficiency measurement for clinical and research purposes
What techniques in language sampling, observation, and assessment lead to best determination of language proficiency in bilingual children
- Identifiers of language disorders
What are the best methods to identify disorders in children who are bilingual or learning English as a second language. Development of a language screener for Spanish-speaking children
- Characteristics of bilingual and monolingual Spanish-speaking children with and without language disorders
Determine the grammatical and semantic characteristics of children with language disorders and evaluate against those who are developing typically and are monolingual or are learning English as a second language.
- Language loss in bilingual children with typical language and with language disorders
Identify the language characteristics of language loss in children with and without language disorders.