Lara Hardebeck

Supervised by: Prof. Dr Ulla Licandro and Prof. Dr Esther Ruigendijk

Working title: Language acquisition and participation among children with hearing impairments

One of the aims of inclusion is to ensure equal access to education, thereby enabling children and young people to participate fully and effectively in society (Federal Government Commissioner for Matters relating to Disabled Persons, 2018; Platte, 2020). Within the context of (inclusive) teaching, which is predominantly organised around spoken language and thus requires auditory and linguistic comprehension (Bogner et al., 2018; Hennies & Hintermair, 2020), children with hearing impairments who communicate through spoken language encounter numerous barriers to participation (Schwab et al., 2019; Todorov et al., 2021). These barriers arise, amongst other things, from delays in spoken language acquisition (Haukedal et al., 2022; Tomblin et al., 2015). It is necessary to document the subjective experiences and needs of these pupils in order to identify and remove barriers to participation (Todorov et al., 2022).

To enhance the participation of pupils with hearing impairments, this doctoral research project aims to investigate the relationship between language skills and the opportunities for participation available to pupils with hearing impairments. To this end, standardised language tests and questionnaires on participation will be used. In addition, interviews will be conducted with pupils with hearing impairments and their teachers to identify barriers as well as opportunities for support and assistance to facilitate their participation in inclusive classrooms.

Katharina Kuhlmann

Supervised by Prof. Dr Ulla Licandro

Working title: Speech and language disorders and additional impairments in the areas of emotional-social and motor development. Identification of forms and manifestations, as well as their impact on participation

Language is of fundamental importance for children’s ability to cope successfully with school and life, as well as for their participation (Chilla, 2017). Children with impairments in language acquisition but without underlying disorders in other areas of development are said to have primary specific language impairment (SLI) (Spreer et al., 2015). With a prevalence of 5–8%, SLI is one of the most common developmental disorders in childhood (von Suchodoletz, 2014). In addition, accompanying difficulties in non-verbal areas frequently occur. For example, there are close links between the development of linguistic and emotional-social skills (Yew & O’Kearney, 2013). Difficulties with gross and fine motor skills also frequently occur in conjunction with SES (Sanjeevan et al., 2015). The combined occurrence of these developmental difficulties is associated with additional barriers to participation; however, there is a lack of data on combined impairments in primary school-aged children with SES.

This quantitative doctoral project aims to identify the possible forms and manifestations of social-emotional and motor skills in children with SES using standardised testing procedures. Furthermore, the barriers to and opportunities for support regarding participation are to be qualitatively assessed from the parents’ perspective. In this way, the aim is to generate knowledge about combined impairments in children with SES that is of practical significance for targeted intervention and counselling, as well as for strengthening opportunities for participation.

Roos Weijers

Supervised by Prof. Dr Esther Ruigendijk

Working title: The interpretation and processing of wh-questions among German and Dutch children: A cross-linguistic study

The literature indicates that children find it more difficult to understand object structures than subject structures (e.g. Sauerland et al., 2016). However, there is no consensus in the literature on the extent to which case or case marking contributes to the understanding of these structures (Friedmann et al., 2009; Kempe & MacWhinney, 1999). Whilst effects of case marking on children’s understanding of subject and object structures have been found (e.g. Biran & Ruigendijk, 2015), performance on a par with that of adults only emerges at a later age (e.g. Schouwenaars et al., 2018). Furthermore, not all studies find that children understand ‘who’-object questions better than ‘which’-object questions(Metz et al., 2010; Friedmann et al., 2009). This would imply that the inequality of DPs with regard to lexical restriction is not a valid explanation for the better understanding of ‘wer’-object questions(Friedmann et al., 2009).

The aim of this PhD project is therefore to further investigate the role of case marking and DP structure in the interpretation and processing of subject and object structures. To this end, a comparison will be made between the interpretation and processing of German wh-questions on the one hand and Dutch wh-questions on the other. The questions in these languages are very similar in terms of structure, but differ with regard to case marking. Specifically, German-speaking and Dutch-speaking children and adults will take part in a sentence-picture matching task, which will also make use of eye-tracking.

Jonas Romstadt

Working title: Text patterns in A-level examinations

Abitur examinations mark significant milestones in an individual’s educational journey. They can be characterised as ‘high-stakes’ examinations, as career opportunities are directly linked to their assessment. For over 100 years, Abitur examinations have involved written language tasks. This makes them interesting from a linguistic and language-teaching perspective: for over a century, pupils have been writing texts by hand at the end of their institutionally supervised spelling education, without having access to aids such as automated spell-checkers. At the same time, it can be assumed that the writers aim to be as accurate and appropriate as possible. Given the consistency of these conditions, these texts can also be used to trace historical trends. This is the starting point for the research project. Having first described and analysed the use of punctuation marks (see Romstadt, forthcoming), the focus will now shift to broader structures, particularly textual ones: how do pupils construct arguments in writing? What changes can be observed in this regard over time? To what extent are the didactic objectives of German language teaching reflected in their usage?