Publications
To appear
Ndhambi, M., Brookes, H.J., Makaure, P., & Pascoe, M (accepted) Noun Bias in Vocabulary Development of Xitsonga-Speaking Children aged 16 to 32 Months. First Language.
Brookes, H.J., Southwood, F., Defty, C., Kruger, H., Bronn, C. (accepted) The Psychometric Status of Child Language Assessment Tools in South Africa’s Official Languages. South African Journal of Communication Disorders.
Brookes, H.J., Southwood, F., Makaure, P., White, M.J., Mössmer, M., Defty, C., Yalala, S.L., Brink, N., Kruger, H., Matfunjwa, M., Ndhambi, M., Ndlangamandla S., Bhuda, T.M., Bronn, C., Buthelezi, N., Jiyana, W., Khumalo, P.F., Miriri, L., & Skosana, N. (in press). A Crosslinguistic Study of Gesture and Lexical Development in South African Infants. First Language.
Mahura, O., Pascoe, M., Brookes, H. Setswana speech development. In McLeod, S. (ed). The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. Oxford University Press.
2025
Makaure, P., Wilsenach, P., & Schaefer, M. 2024. Longitudinal predictors of single word spelling in Northern Sotho-English bilingual children: a cross-linguistic study. Reading and Writing. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-024-10601-z
Malan, T., Tucker, W. D., Yalala, S. L., & South African CDI Team. (2024). A Pilot Mobile App to Collect South African Child Language Data. In W. Chigona, S. Kabanda, & L. F. Seymour (Eds.), Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development. ICT4D 2024. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology (Vol. 708, pp. 313–327). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-66982-8_22
Southwood, F., & White, M.J. (2024). Language acquisition in Afrikaans. Book chapter in W.A.M. Carstens, & N. Bosman (eds.), Contemporary Afrikaans Linguistics. (pp. 622-638). Stellenbosch: African SUN Media.
White, M., Southwood, F., Yalala, S L., & the South African CDI team. (2024). Early child language resources and corpora developed in nine African languages by the SADiLaR Child Language Development Node. In Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages @ LREC-COLING 2024(pp. 86–93). Torino, Italia: ELRA and ICCL.
Brookes, H., Southwood, F., Mössmer, M., Makaure, P., White, M. J., Coetsee, C., Yalala, S. L., Kruger, H., Mikateko Ndhambi, Sibusiso Ndlangamandla, Bhuda, M. T., Brink, N., Nomfundo Buthelezi, Jiyana, W., F Portia Khumalo, Babalwa Ludidi, Muzi Matfunjwa, Lufuno Miriri, & Nomsa Skosana. (2025). Instrument adaptation for measuring early child language development across multilingual and sociocultural diverse settings. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001935
Brookes, H., Makaure, Z., Yalala, S., Danvers, H., Mössmer, M., Little, F., Ludidi, B., Ndhambi, M., Southwood, F., and the South African CDI Team. (2025). Mean Length of Utterance: A study of early language development in four Southern Bantu languages. Journal of Child Language, 52(2), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000923000685
2024
Southwood, F., & White, M. J. (2024). Language acquisition in Afrikaans, in Carstens, W.A.M. & Bosman, N. (eds.). Afrikaans Linguistics: Contemporary perspectives, 611–638. SUN PReSS.
Pascoe, M., Ndhambi, M., Mahura, O., Buthelezi, N. P., Husselmann, N., & Ludidi, B. (2024). Many voices, many languages: Listening and learning from South African children. In Early Childhood Voices: Children, families, professionals, 151–163. Springer.
Brookes, H., Agyepong, D., White, M., & Yalala, S. (2024). The development of speech and gesture in Sesotho narratives. Gesture, 22(3). https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.21006.bro
Stam, G., Brookes, H., Ngumbela, U. (2024). What speech and gesture illustrate about the Thinking-for-Speaking patterns of child isiXhosa speakers learning English. In Brown, A. & Eskildsen, S. W. (eds.). Multimodality and Multilingual Interaction Across Epistemologies, 234–239. Routledge.
Makaure, P. & Wilsenach, C. (2024). Explaining variation in reading comprehension in Northern Sotho-English bilingual children: A Simple View of Reading perspective on longitudinal data. Reading Psychology, 45(2), 143–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2023.2276444
2023
Nel, J., Southwood, F., & White, M.J. 2023. The comprehension and production of passive constructions by Afrikaans and isiXhosa first language Grade 1 children, Language Acquisition. DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2022.2159828
Brink, N. (2023). Metonymic relations underlying the one-word utterances of Afrikaans-speaking infants and toddlers. Language and Cognition, 15(1), 86–105. https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog.2022.26
2022
Simonsen, H. D. G. & Southwood, F. (2022). Child language assessment across different multilingual contexts: Insights and challenges from South and North. In Røyneland, U. & Blackwood, R. (eds.), Multilingualism Across the Lifespan, 11–30. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003125815
Southwood, F., Brink, N., & Oosthuizen, H. (2022). Kindertaal [Child language], in W.A.M. Carstens & T. Van Dyk (eds.), Toegepaste Taalkunde in Afrikaans [Applied Linguistics in Afrikaans]. Van Schaik.
White, M.J., Southwood, F., & Huddlestone, K. (2022). Children’s acquisition of negation in L1 Afrikaans. First Language, 43(1), 22–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237221112064
2021
Southwood, F., White, M.J., Brookes, H., Pascoe, M., Ndhambi, M., Yalala, S., Mahura, O., Mössmer, M., Oosthuizen, H., Brink, N., & Alcock, K. (2021). Sociocultural factors affecting vocabulary development in young South African children. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1645. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.642315
2020
Southwood, F., & Oosthuizen, H., and the South African CDI Team. (2020). Afrikaanse taalvariasie: Uitdagings vir regverdige meting van jong kinders se taal. SPiL PLUS, 59, 81–104. https://doi.org/10.5842/59-0-829
Brink, N. (2020). A usage-based investigation of Afrikaans-speaking children’s holophrases and communicative intentions, SPiL PLUS, 59, 21–44. https://doi.org/10.5842/59-0-860
2018
Dowling, T., & Whitelaw, E.. (2018). Working towards culturally and linguistically diverse speech assessments for South African children: A Xhosa case study. Language Matters, 49(2), 39–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2018.1467479
2017
Brink, N. & Breed, A. (2017). Hoe jong Afrikaanssprekende kinders betekenis aan hul vroeë taalgebruik verbind. [How young Afrikaans children connect meaning to their early vocabulary]. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe, 57(4), 1012–1036. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-c3dbe1caf
Conference Presentations
2025
Brookes, H.J. and the CDI team (2025) A crosslinguistic study of early gesture and lexical development in 11 South African languages. International Society for Gestures Studies 9-11 July, Nijmegen, Netherlands
2024
Frenette Southwood, Michelle White, Heather Brookes, Nomfundo Buthelezi & the South African CDI Team. Early Language Development in four South African languages: Noun and verb bias and morphological onset.Presented at the 16th IASCL, Prague, Czech Republic, 15-19 July 2024.
Heather Brookes. Understanding the Role of Language Input in Early Childhood among IsiXhosa Speakers. Presentation at the 2024 SALALS Conference, Johannesburg, 24-26 June 2024.
Carmen Coetsee. Child-directed speech in low-SES communities: The case of Afrikaans rural and urban-situated infants. Presentation at the 2024 SALALS Conference, Johannesburg, 24-26 June 2024.
Sibusiso Ndlangamandla and the CDI Team. Instrument Adaptation for Measuring Early Child Language Development across Multilingual and Socio-culturally Diverse Settings. Presentation at the 2024 SALALS Conference, Johannesburg, 24-26 June 2024.
Mikateko Ndhambi, Heather Brookes, & Michelle Pascoe. Morphosyntactic Development in Xitsonga-Speaking Children Aged 16-30 Months. Presentation at the 2024 SALALS Conference, Johannesburg, 24-26 June 2024.
Nina Brink, Michelle White, Frenette Southwood & Helena Kruger. The Impact of Known Risk Factors on the Vocabulary Development of Young Afrikaans-speaking Children from Mid- and Low-SES Backgrounds. Presentation at the 2024 SALALS Conference, Johannesburg, 24-26 June 2024.
Makaure, P. & Carien Wilsenach. Phonological awareness and literacy development in Northern Sotho-English bilingual children: a longitudinal study. Presentation at the 2024 Education Deans Forum Colloquium, Johannesburg, 17 May 2024.
2023
Michelle White, Frenette Southwood, Magdalena Krysztofiak, Grzegorz Krajewski, Karolina Muszynska, Nina Gram Garmann, & Ewa Haman. A North-South perspective on SES, socialisation and bilingual vocabulary development. Poster presented at the MultiLing Closing Conference, Oslo University, 18-20 October 2023.
Frenette Southwood. Early communication development in multilingual South Africa. Invited plenary presented at the at the National Convention of the South African Speech, Language, and Hearing Association, Cape Town, 20 October 2023.
Michelle White & Frenette Southwood. Which factors affect bilingual vocabulary size in toddlers acquiring Afrikaans and South African English? Paper presented at the 14th meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Macquarie University, Sydney, 26-30 June 2023.
2022
Michelle White, Frenette Southwood, Nina Gram Garmann, Ewa Haman, Pernille Hansen, Grzegorz Krajewski, Karolina Mieszkowska, Dorota Orzeszek. A North-South perspective on bilingualism and socioeconomic status. Paper presented at the 2022 International Research in Early Childhood Education Conference, Tromsø, Norway, 21-22 November 2022.
Brink, N., Oosthuizen, H, Southwood, F. & White, M. Afrikaans- and South African English-speaking infants who say 10 words or less: Variability in their expressive vocabulary. Paper presented at the 2022 conference of the South African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society, University of Potchefstroom, 27-30 June 2022.
White, M.J. & Southwood, F. 2022. Does geographical location influence toddlers’ lexical knowledge? Findings from South Africa. Paper presented at the Eight European Network Meeting on Communicative Development Inventories – EUNM-CDI 2022, University of Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 15-17 May 2022.
Michelle White, Frenette Southwood, Nina Gram Garmann, Ewa Haman, Pernille Hansen, Grzegorz Krajewski, Karolina Mieszkowska, Dorota Orzeszek. A North-South perspective on bilingualism and socioeconomic status. Paper presented at the 2022 International Research in Early Childhood Education Conference, Tromsø, Norway, 21-22 November 2022.
Sefela Yalala and Heather Brookes. Early production of actions and gestures in six South African languages. Paper presented International Society for Gesture Studies 9th conference,13–15 July, Chicago, USA
Child Language Development: Taking stock and looking to the future. Workshop at the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society conference 2022, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 27–30 June 2022.
Marguerite De Jongh. Collaboration between Teachers and Speech Language therapists: Supporting multilingual learners with speech, language and communication needs.
Carol Bloch. State of Early Childhood Development in South Africa.
Amina Abubakar. Measuring early language development in the health sector on the African context: Experiences from Kenya.
Virginia Marchman. Measuring early language development in US and Senegal – past and latest developments (what can be done).
Ngazibini Booi. Experiences of speech and language therapists in South Africa.
Nomfundo Buthelezi, Michelle Pascoe, Mikateko Ndhambi. Needs of Speech and Language Therapy in South Africa.
Anne Baker. The social and economic costs of underdeveloped language capacity locally and globally.
Sefela Yalala and Heather Brookes. Early production of actions and gestures in six South African languages. Paper presented at the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society conference 2022, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 27–30 June 2022.
Mikateko Ndhambi, Babalwa Ludidi, Sefela Yalala, Patricia Makaure and Heather Brookes. Length of utterance – morpheme or words? A study of early language development. Paper presented at the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society conference 2022, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 27–30 June 2022.
Nina Brink, Helena Oosthuizen, Frenette Southwood and Michelle White. Afrikaans- and South African English-speaking infants who say 10 words or less: Variability in their expressive vocabulary. Paper presented at the Southern African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society conference 2022, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, 27–30 June 2022.
Michelle J. White & Frenette Southwood. Does geographical location influence toddlers’ lexical knowledge? Findings from South Africa. Paper presented at the Eight European Network Meeting on Communicative Development Inventories – EUNM-CDI 2022, University of Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 15–17 May 2022.
2021
Equivalent child language assessment instruments across languages: Southern Africa CDIs. Paper presented at the 13th International Symposium on Bilingualism, Warsaw, Poland, 10–14 July 2021. With White, M. Brookes, H., Brink, N., Mahura, O., Mössmer, M., Ndhambu, M., Oosthuizen, H., Pascoe, M., Yalala, S., & Alcock, K.
Vocabulary size of Afrikaans-speaking toddlers: Influence of health-related and household-related risk factors across SES groups. Paper presented at the 2021 conference of the South African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society, online, 21-23 September 2021. White, M., Brink, N., Oosthuizen, H., & Southwood, F.
Adaptation and development of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) for South African languages. Paper presented at the 2021 conference of the South African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society, online, 21-23 September 2021. Yalala, S., Mahura, O., Ludidi, B., Oosthuizen, H., Alcock, K., Brink, N., Brookes, H., Mössmer, M., Ndhambi, M., Pascoe, M., Southwood, F., & White, M.
Sociocultural Factors Affecting Vocabulary Development in Young South African Children. Paper presented at the 2021 conference of the South African Linguistics and Applied Linguistics Society, online, 21-23 September 2021. Ndhambi, M., Ludidi, B., Southwood, F., Brink, N., Brookes, H., Mahura, O., Alcock, K., Mössmer, M., Oosthuizen, H., Pascoe, M., White, M., & Yalala, S.
Frenette Southwood, Helena Oosthuizen, Michelle White, Heather Brookes, Tessa Dowling, Michelle Pascoe, Mikateko Ndhambi, and Katie Alcock. 2021. Equivalent child language assessment instruments across languages: Southern Africa CDI. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Bilingualism 13, Warsaw University, Poland, 14 July 2021.
2019
Michelle Pascoe, Mikateko Ndhambi, Olebeng Mahura, Sefela Yalala, Heather Brookes, Helena Oosthuizen, and Frenette Southwood. Multilingualism in Southern Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. Invited seminar presentation at Linköping University, Sweden, November 2019.
Katie Alcock, Tessa Dowling, Michelle Pascoe, Olebeng Mahura, Heather Brookes, Mikateko Ndhambi, Frenette Southwood, and Helena Oosthuizen. Multilingual construction of Communicative Development Inventories in Southern Africa. Poster presentation at the Child Language Symposium, University of Sheffield, England, July 2019.
2018
Michelle Pascoe, Olebeng Mahura, Heather Brookes, Tessa Dowling, Helena Oosthuizen, Frenette Southwood, Naledi Kgolo, Rose Letsholo, and Katie Alcock. Towards Communicative Development Inventories for Southern African children. Poster presentation at the Workshop on Current Issues in Child Bilingual Development, Sydney, Australia, 26-27 July 2018.
2017
Frenette Southwood, Heather Brookes, Tessa Dowling, Helena Oosthuizen, Michelle Pascoe, and the Southern African CDI team. Addressing the Challenges that language variation poses for fair child assessment. Presentation at the workshop Language variation, contact, and change: South African perspectives, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, September 2017.
The Child Language Development Node 