Are pupils with developmental or learning disorders more at risk in immersion education ?
(2025) Annual meeting of the Groupe de Contact FNRS ‘Psycholinguistique & Neurolinguistique’ (GCPN) — Location: Liège (5.December.2025)
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- Abstract
- Although immersion education has gained popularity worldwide, very little research has been conducted on its inclusiveness for pupils who display atypical development. We investigated whether pupils with dyslexia (Study 1) or AD(H)D (Study 2) also benefit from immersion education or whether their respective impairments put them more at risk. Participants were recruited in French-speaking Belgium from schools offering Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Study 1 (Parmentier et al., 2024) included 5th- and 11th-grade CLIL and non-CLIL pupils with dyslexia (n=28) and matched controls (n=112). For Study 2, we recruited 5th- and 6th-grade CLIL and non-CLIL children with (n=21) or without AD(H)D (n=46). In both studies, we compared the 4 subgroups on linguistic and academic measures, as well as literacy (Study 1) or attentional and executive (Study 2) measures. Overall, we observed that participating in immersion education did not exacerbate reading or attentional difficulties, nor did it compromise language acquisition and school achievement of pupils with dyslexia or AD(H)D. Our findings rather suggest that they may benefit from immersion education, just like their typically developing peers do.
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Parmentier, C., & Szmalec, A. (2025, December 5). Are pupils with developmental or learning disorders more at risk in immersion education ? Annual meeting of the Groupe de Contact FNRS ‘Psycholinguistique & Neurolinguistique’ (GCPN), Liège. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/277786