TY - JOUR

T1 - Linguistic and Communicative Diversity in Inclusive Settings

T2 - Effects, Challenges, and Opportunities

AU - Stitzinger, Ulrich

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 by the author.

PY - 2025/1/27

Y1 - 2025/1/27

N2 - Diversity is understood as a significant advantage for inclusive learning. However, the questions of whether linguistic and communicative diversity in the classroom is truly beneficial and whether mutually linguistic support is effective between students with and without language impairments have not yet been answered comprehensively. Therefore, within the research project ‘LINUS—Learners in Inclusive Settings’, interactions between children (n = 48; aged 6 y 7 m to 7 y 7 m) in dyads in primary school were videotaped and micro-sequentially analyzed. The pairs of children were engaged in a 15 min playful framework within a quasi-experimental design. Based on quantitative language corpus analyses, the occurrence of linguistic elements was compared between pairs of children with (a) typical age-appropriate language acquisition, (b) developmental language disorders, and (c) heterogeneous settings with respect to backgrounds of language acquisition. Additionally, quantitative coding was used to analyze how often linguistic elements were productively imitated from one child to the other in different peer settings. The results show that there is a higher potential for mutually motivated communication and more resources for linguistic support in mixed dyads. From this study, specific principles for teachers and students can be drawn to foster linguistic support between children in the context of diversity.

AB - Diversity is understood as a significant advantage for inclusive learning. However, the questions of whether linguistic and communicative diversity in the classroom is truly beneficial and whether mutually linguistic support is effective between students with and without language impairments have not yet been answered comprehensively. Therefore, within the research project ‘LINUS—Learners in Inclusive Settings’, interactions between children (n = 48; aged 6 y 7 m to 7 y 7 m) in dyads in primary school were videotaped and micro-sequentially analyzed. The pairs of children were engaged in a 15 min playful framework within a quasi-experimental design. Based on quantitative language corpus analyses, the occurrence of linguistic elements was compared between pairs of children with (a) typical age-appropriate language acquisition, (b) developmental language disorders, and (c) heterogeneous settings with respect to backgrounds of language acquisition. Additionally, quantitative coding was used to analyze how often linguistic elements were productively imitated from one child to the other in different peer settings. The results show that there is a higher potential for mutually motivated communication and more resources for linguistic support in mixed dyads. From this study, specific principles for teachers and students can be drawn to foster linguistic support between children in the context of diversity.

KW - inclusion

KW - language corpus analysis

KW - linguistic-communicative diversity

KW - peer intervention

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85218858643&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/educsci15020157

DO - 10.3390/educsci15020157

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85218858643

VL - 15

JO - Education Sciences

JF - Education Sciences

SN - 2227-7102

IS - 2

M1 - 157

ER -