Cooperative project with over 20 participating countries. We coordinate semantic-pragmatic experiments on language acquisition in the 20 languages.
Action A33 set out with the practical goal of helping European children with language impairments. One important way to help such children is to diagnose cases of language-specific impairment and normal non-verbal intelligence. Children with language-specific problems require a different kind of support from children with more general cognitive impairments. Specifically, the action proposed to provide recommendations for a design of an unbiased, trans-European language assessment tool. To accomplish the goal, the action coordinated a comparative investigation of child language across the more than 25 participating languages. Initial meetings were used to pin down areas of investigation and specific experimental items what could be translated and could be expected to be equally difficult for children across all the participating languages. Simultaneously researchers had to find additional resources to conduct the experimental investigations required for the action goals. The main result of the action are a set of unique experiments and results that compare the linguistic performance of children speaking such different languages as Basque and Finnish, Hebrew and Portuguese. A set of high-profile publications presenting these results and the methods developed in the action are appearing in 2010 and 2011. Because the study conducted by the action is the first of its kind world-wide, we expect international interest to be high. On the basis of the results, the targeted recommendations can be made for language assessment across the European languages. The action was successful in at least four other ways: 1) At least 10 associated new projects were launched with funding from either national or European agencies. 2) Of the more than 80 STSM missions funded by the action, already three led to publications in international journals. 3) The two training schools and also many of the STSMs transferred much of the expert knowledge of the action members to the next generation of researchers across Europe. 4) And finally, the action led to the recognition of specific language impairment in at least two European countries where the concept had not been recognized in the past. In this way, the action already helped a number of European children receive the support they need.
Chair
Ulrich Sauerland | Germany | ZAS Berlin | WG5 |
Vicechair
Heather van der Lely | GB | Harvard, UK | WG3 (WG2) |
Working Group Coordinators
Spyridoula Varlokosta | Greece | U. of Aegean | WG1 (WG5) |
Angeliek van Hout | Netherlands | U. Groningen | WG2 (WG5) |
Naama Friedmann | Israel | Tel Aviv U. | WG3 (WG1) |
Sharon Armon-Lotem | Israel | Bar-Ilan U. | WG4 (WG3) |
Kenneth Drozd | Denmark | Aarhus U. | WG5 (WG1) |
Coordinator of STSM
Ewa Haman | Poland | Warsaw U. | WG5 (WG4) |
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Further Members of the Management Committee
Wolfgang Dressler | Austria | Vienna U. | WG2 (WG5) |
Bettina Fürst | Austria | Vienna U. | WG2 |
Hubert Haider | Austria | Salzburg U. | WG3 (WG2) |
Hristo Kyuchukov | Bulgaria | Veliko Tarnovo U. | WG3 (WG2) |
Melita Kovačević | Croatia | Zagreb U. | WG2 (WG3) |
Jelena Kraljević (Kuvač) | Croatia | Zagreb U. | WG2 (WG3) |
Chrisa Nitsiou | Cyprus | Intercollege | WG3 (WG4) |
Kleanthes Grohmann | Cyprus | Cyprus U. | WG1 (WG3) |
Filip Smolik | Czech Republic | AV ČR Praha | |
Kristine Jensen de López | Denmark | Aalborg U. | WG4 (WG3) |
Sirli Parm | Estonia | Tartu U. | WG5 |
Maigi Vija | Estonia | Tartu U. | WG5 (WG1) |
Reili Argus | Estonia | Tallinn U. | WG2 (WG3) |
Matti Leiwo | Finland | Jyväskylä U. | WG4 |
Sari Kunnari | Finland | Oulu U. | WG4 |
Heikki Lyytinen | Finland | Jyväskylä U. | WG4 |
Celia Jakubowicz | France | CNRS | WG3 (WG1) |
Ira Noveck | France | ISC Lyon | WG5 |
Laurice Tuller | France | U. Tours | WG3 |
Susan E. Gathercole | GB | Newcastle U. | |
Natalia Gagarina | Germany | ZAS Berlin | WG2 |
Jürgen Weissenborn | Germany | Humboldt U. | WG1 (WG5) |
Stavroula Stavrakaki | Greece | Thessaloniki U. | WG3 (WG1) |
Maria Teresa Guasti | Italy | U. Milano-Bicocca | WG3 (WG5/1) |
Ingrida Balčiūnienė | Lithuania | Vytautas Magnus U. | WG5 (WG4) |
Ineta Dabašinskienė | Lithuania | Vytautas Magnus U. | WG5 (WG4) |
Daniela Gatt | Malta | U. of Malta | WG2 (WG5) |
Helen Grech | Malta | U. of Malta | WG2 (WG5) |
Jan de Jong | Netherlands | Amsterdam U. | WG2 |
Arve Egil Asbjørnsen | Norway | Bergen U. | WG3 (WG2) |
Arild Hestvik | Norway | Bergen U. | WG3 |
Janne Cecilie von Koss Torkildsen (starting 2008) | Norway | Bergen U. | WG (WG) |
Magdalena Smoczynska | Poland | Jagellonian U. | WG4 (WG5) |
João Costa | Portugal | Lisbon U. | WG3 (WG1) |
Larisa Avram | Romania | U. of Bucharest | WG2 (WG3) |
Darinka Andjelković | Serbia | Belgrade U. | WG5 (WG2) |
Nadezda Krstić | Serbia | Belgrade U. | WG5 (WG2) |
Svetlana Kapalkova | Slovac Republic | Comenius U., Bratislava | WG3 (WG4) |
Daniela Slancova | Slovac Republic | Presov U. | WG3 (WG4) |
Anna Gavarró | Spain | Autònoma Barcelona U. | WG1 (WG3) |
María-José Ezeizabarrena Segurola | Spain | Pais Vasco U. | WG1 (WG3) |
Gisela Håkansson | Sweden | Lund U. | WG3 (WG2)
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Members of Working Groups
Napoleon Katsos | GB | Cambridge U. | WG5 (WG1) |
Marcin Szczerbiński | GB | U of Sheffield | WG4 |
Dagmar Bittner | Germany | ZAS Berlin | WG2 |
Barbara Höhle | Germany | Potsdam U. | WG3 (WG5) |
Christina Kauschke | Germany | Marburg U. | WG3 |
Petra Schulz | Germany | Frankfurt a.M. U. | WG3 (WG2/5) |
Kazuko Yatsushiro | Germany | ZAS | WG5 (WG4) |
Jeannette Schaeffer | Israel | Ben-Gurion U. | WG3 (WG2) |
Fabrizio Arosio | Italy | U. Milano-Bicocca | WG2 (WG3) |
Adriana Belletti | Italy | Siena U. | WG3 (WG1) |
Bart Hollebrandse | Netherlands | U. Groningen | WG2 (WG5/3) |
Dorota Kiebzak-Mandera | Poland | Jagellonian U. | WG2 (WG5) |
Maria Lobo | Portugal | Lisbon U. | WG1 (WG3) |
To appear:
Grohmann, Kleanthes K. To appear. Some directions for the systematic investigation of the acquisition of Cypriot Greek. In Esther Rinke & Tanja Kupisch (eds.), The development of grammar: Language acquisition and diachronic change — Volume in honor of Jürgen M. Meisel. (Hamburg Series on Multilingualism 11). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kambanaros, Maria & Kleanthes K. Grohmann. Forthcoming. Patterns of object and action naming in Cypriot Greek children with SLI and WFDs. In Katie Franich, Lauren Keil, Kate Iserman & Jane Chandlee (eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Boston University Child Language Development — Supplement.
Kambanaros, Maria & Kleanthes K. Grohmann. To appear. Patterns of naming objects and actions in Cypriot Greek children with SLI and WFDs. In Anastasios Tsangalides (ed.), Selected papers from the 19th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics — Thessaloniki, 4–6 May 2007. Thessaloniki: Monochromia.
Published:
Katsos, Napoleon, Clara Andrés Roqueta, Rosa A. C. Estevan & Chris Cummins. 2011. Are children with Specific Language Impairment competent with the pragmatics and logic of quantification? Cognition 10.1016 / j.cognition.2010.12.004
Friedmann, Naama, Adriana Belletti & Luigi Rizzi. 2009. Relativized relatives: Types of intervention in the acquisition of A-bar dependencies. In: Lingua 119: 67-88.
Costa, Joao & Naama Friedmann. 2009. Hebrew and Arabic children going Romance: On the acquisition of word order in Semitic and Romance. In E. Aboh, J. Quer, P. Sleeman & E. van der Linden (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2007: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Amsterdam 2007. (Current issues in linguistic theory series). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Guasti, Teresa, Stavroula Stavrakaki & Fabrizio Arosio. 2008. Number and case in the comprehension of relative clauses. Evidence from Italian and Greek. In Anna Gavarro & M. Joao Freitas (eds.), Language acquisition and development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press/CSP.
January 21-23, 2010
Final Conference
location: London, UK
local organizer: Heather van der Lely
October 8-9, 2009
Seventh General Meeting
location: Athens, Greece
local organizer: Spyridoula Varlokosta
July 27 - August 7, 2009
COSTA33/EGG summer school
location: Poznan, Poland
Lecturers for the COST section are: Natalia Gagarina, Ewa Haman, Bart Hollebrandse, Stavroula Stavrakaki & Uli Sauerland.
March 30 - April 3, 2009
COST Training School in Language Acquisition Methods
location: Berlin, Germany
local organizer: Natalia Gagarina, Mechthild Bernhard, Anja Hubert & Uli Sauerland
March 19-21, 2009
Sixth General Meeting
location: Cambridge, UK
local organizer: Napoleon Katsos
October 2-4, 2008
Fifth General Meeting
location: Aalborg, Denmark
local organizer: Kristine Jensen de López
May 1-3, 2008
Fourth General Meeting
location: Warsaw, Poland
local organizer: Ewa Haman
October 25-27, 2007
Third General Meeting
location: Limassol, Cyprus
local organizer: Kleanthes K. Grohmann
February 15-17, 2007
Second General Meeting
location: Berlin, Germany
local organizers: Uli Sauerland & Jürgen Weissenborn
July 6-8, 2006
First General Meeting
location: Lissabon, Portugal
local organizer: João Costa
January 31st, 2006
Kick-Off Meeting in Brussels