Child Language Africa
Child Language Development Node
Transforming our knowledge of language and communication development in children in the multilingual South African context
Welcome to Child Language Africa: Home of the Child Language Development Node
CLDN Overview
Unidentified and unmet language needs have huge individual, social and economic consequences for society, according to research done in the UK, a country similar in size to SA, unmet and unidentified language needs across the life span will cost 330 million pounds per age cohort. The Child Language Development node of SADiLaR, hosted by the Department of General Linguistics at Stellenbosch University, works to advance knowledge about children’s language development in African languages.
The main function of this node is to promote research on child language development in all South African languages and the digitisation of child language development data so that it is freely available on the SADiLaR platform for all scientists working on language, cognition, child health and development, language learning and language disorders. Data on African languages can inform the development of valid diagnostic tools and interventions to promote language and cognitive development in South Africa’s children in health and educational settings.
The Child Language Development Node 