Migration and disability: expanding international relations in the areas of physical and motor development and intellectual development
April/May 2024
As part of an international exchange between the Department of Curative Education and Rehabilitation at the University of Cologne and the Deakin University Melbourne (Australia), Prof. Dr. Angela Dew spent 4 weeks at the Research and Advice Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (FBZ-UK) to find out about developments in Cologne in the field of UK in the context of physically disabled children, mentally disabled children and migrant and refugee children with disabilities (https://www.fbz-uk.uni-koeln.de/projekte/kvdaz-projekt ; https://www.fbz-uk.uni-koeln.de/materialien/kernvokabular/materialien). In return, Prof. Dew shared her experience and knowledge of the organizational, cultural and linguistic challenges faced by Syrian refugee children with disabilities in Australia, which she has collected in various studies. The bilingual Cologne materials and the experiences from the CDE language support project (https://www.fbz-uk.uni-koeln.de/projekte/zue ) will serve as a template for a joint research project on improved language support for refugee children in Australia.
The Cologne studies on core vocabulary and the Cologne language support materials developed from them, originally developed for non-speaking children, are already being used as a language support concept for speaking refugee children in the central accommodation facilities in NRW and elsewhere. This experience forms the basis for a joint, diversity-sensitive research project on language support for refugee children with disabilities with the University of Melbourne.
Prof. Dew's research stay was enriched by a research meeting at the FBZ-UK, in which Prof. Dr. em. Susan Balandin (Deakin University Melbourne) also took part to discuss cultural differences, current developments and necessary research in the context of flight, migration and disability. The stay and the Resaerch Meeting (April - May 2024) were organized by Prof. Dr. Jens Boenisch (focus on physical and motor development) and Prof. Dr. Tobias Bernasconi (focus on intellectual development).
In the photos from left to right: Prof. Dr. Angela Drew (Deakin University Melbourne), Prof. Dr. em. Susan Balandin (Norway/Deakin University Melbourne), Prof. Dr. Tobias Bernasconi (University of Cologne), Prof. Drew, Prof. Baladin, Prof. Dr. Jens Boenisch (University of Cologne)