Interview Elma Blom
What is your research about?
My research is about children's language development. You need language to communicate with others, to build relationships and friendships, to learn and to work. In short, you need language to find your way in life.
I do a lot of research on children for whom language is an obstacle, such as children with language development disorders. One question I am looking into is: how do you recognise a language development disorder? This is important because language problems are sometimes confused with developmental delays or behavioural problems. Proper diagnosis is essential for proper treatment and support for children for whom language is a problem.
I am also fascinated by multilingualism in children and the ease with which they can learn multiple languages. I would like to see more understanding and appreciation of multilingualism in our society and less worry about multilingualism. In my research, I look at a variety of assumptions underlying these concerns. For example, it is often thought that mixing languages – which is quite common in multilingual families – disrupts children's development or is a sign of limited language skills. The initial results of our study suggest that this is not the case at all.
Another example: in many schools, there is a rather fierce insistence on 'Dutch only', while there is no evidence that such a strict monolingual language policy is better than a flexible approach. Why not make use of the wealth of languages in the classroom? I think that's a missed opportunity. Together with my colleagues, I am therefore researching how to use the different home languages of multilingual children in learning at school, but also in other places such as science museums or at home.
What do you like about working at FSBS/UU? Why work here in particular?
Thirteen years ago, I came back from Canada and started looking for a place in the Netherlands where I could combine my specific interest in language with a broad social vision of child development. I found this place at FSBS/UU, in the Development & Education of Youth in Diverse Societies section.
What makes pedagogy special is that it is a science of action focusing on the actions of educators and teachers. When it comes to language development and multilingualism, there is still a lot of ground to cover. This could include raising awareness about the importance of language development, the role of a child's environment in encouraging language and letting go of the notion that multilingual children are lagging behind in their language development.
What makes UU unique?
At Utrecht's Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, there is plenty of room for interdisciplinary collaboration and a focus on Open Science. That suits me and my research very well. In addition to my ongoing research on multilingualism in families and in education, I am associated with the interdisciplinary focus area Migration and Societal Change and the Dynamics of Youth (DoY) community Early Childhood.
With support from DoY, I was able to collaborate with biologists, psychologists and language scientists to conduct research into the neurobiology of language development disorders. Together with neonatologists and language scientists, I conduct research on the language development of children born extremely prematurely. Together with speech and language therapists, I am working on a digital test environment that can improve diagnostics in multilingual children. E, we are currently running a project in which, together with colleagues in obstetrics and social designers, we are exploring how to create an app with daily exercises that can enhance communication between the pregnant mother and the still unborn child. All of these collaborations are hugely inspiring. They provide new insights and enable application of these insights in parenting, care and education.