Tamara Sorenson Duncan
Associate Director and Associate Professor (Linguistics)
- PhD (University of Alberta)
- 256 Paterson Hall, Carleton University
- 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6
- Email Tamara Sorenson Duncan
My research program investigates language and literacy development in diverse populations. To date, this work has included children from immigrant and refugee backgrounds, children with developmental language disorder and children with autism spectrum disorder.
Recent News
Interested in Getting Involved With Research?
Do you have questions about how children learn a second language? Are you interested in collaborating on a project? Let’s work together!
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Current
Sarah Donnelly is completing her MA thesis where she will be looking at the language and literacy skills of children with special education needs in a bilingual education setting. This investigates how children with special education needs learn language in a bilingual classroom.
Former
Hesam Farahani completed his MA thesis investigating sources of individual differences in university students’ abilities to learn new words from written texts.
Yianna Georgopoulos completed her BA Honours Thesis titled “L2 Morphosyntactic Acquisition in Somali Refugee Children and the Language Socialization Practices of their Families”
Hikmet Mawi completed an independent research project, which investigated the experiences of bilingual families from immigrant and refugee backgrounds who have children with autism spectrum disorder.
Emma Bornheimer completed her BA honours thesis, which focused on netspeak (the language of the internet) in autistic individuals. She continued this line of research with the support of a FASS Summer Research award. You can learn a little more about her summer project here.
Fatemeh Saadat completed her BSc thesis in Psychology at Dalhousie University. I co-supervised her work (with Hélène Deacon). Her thesis investigated the relations between sentence comprehension and reading comprehension across developmental time points.
Manasi Karkada completed her BSc. Honours thesis at Dalhousie University. I co-supervised her research with Isabel Smith. She also completed an independent study, which I co-supervised with Hélène Deacon. While at Dalhousie, her research focused on reading comprehension in children with autism spectrum disorder. She has since completed her MSc. in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Oxford.
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For the 2024-25 school year, I am teaching: ALDS/LING 2604 and ALDS/LING 3604.
I am also the coordinator for LING 4604: Practicum in Speech Language Pathology. If you are interested in learning more about this practicum course, please consult the information packet for ALDS and LING programs.
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Sorenson Duncan, T. (2021). Interview about second language acquisition in children with exceptionalities. Put together by the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers (CASTL) as part of their Languages Build series.
Sorenson Duncan, T. (2021). Interview about the role of language input from siblings in children’s second language acquisition. Host: Sharon Unsworth. Podcast: English edition of Kletsheads (Season 1, Episode 6).
Sorenson Duncan, T. (2020). Language Development in children from immigrant and refugee backgrounds: What does it look like and why does it matter? Webinar for Speech-Language & Audiology Canada. (Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology Canada (SAC) members/associates can view a recording of the webinar through SAC, non-members can access the slides here)
Capozzi-Davis, O., Côté, E. Innes, O. & Sorenson Duncan, T. (2020). Can children with autism spectrum disorder be bilingual? Originally published in: Canadian Teacher Magazine, 8, Winter Issue, p. 32-33.
Sorenson Duncan, T. Kay-Raining Bird, E. & Smith, I.M. (2019) Bilingualism and students with ASD: A world with possibilities. Webinar created for Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority.
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MacKay, E., Lynch, E., Sorenson Duncan, T. & Deacon, S.H. (2021). Informing the science of reading: Children’s awareness of sentence-level information is important for reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly. http://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.397
Sorenson Duncan, T., Karkada, M., Deacon, S.H. & Smith, I.M. (2021). Building Meaning: Meta-analysis of Component Skills Supporting Reading Comprehension in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Autism Research. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aur.2483
Kay-Raining Bird, E., Genesee, F., Sutton, A., Chen, X., Oracheski, J., Pagan, S., Squires, B., Burchell, D., & Sorenson Duncan, T. (2020). Access and outcomes of children with special education needs in early French immersion. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education. https://doi.org/10.1075/jicb.20012.kay.
Sorenson Duncan, T., Mimeau, C., Crowell, N. & Deacon, S. H. (2020). Not all sentences are created equal: Evaluating the relation between children’s understanding of basic and difficult sentences and their reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology. https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fedu0000545
Sorenson Duncan, T. & Paradis, J. (2020). Home language environment and children’s second language acquisition: the special status of input from older siblings. Journal of Child Language. First view: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000919000977
Sorenson Duncan, T. & Paradis, J. (2020). How does maternal education influence the linguistic environment supporting bilingual development in child L2 learners of English? International Journal of Bilingualism, 24, 46-61 (first published as an online first in 2018). https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1367006918768366
Newman, J. & Sorenson Duncan, T. (2019). The subject of ROAR in the mind and in the corpus: What divergent results can teach us. Linguistica Atlantica, 37, 1-27. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/la/article/view/28827
Sorenson Duncan, T. & Paradis, J. (2019). Using television to boost native-speaker input for L2-learning children: A cautionary tale. BUCLD 43: Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development, 639-652. http://www.lingref.com/bucld/43/BUCLD43-50.pdf
Sorenson Duncan, T., MacKay, E. & Deacon. S.H. (2018). Further implications of wearing literate glasses: Considerations for developmental research, psycholinguistics and clinical practice. Commentary in L’Année Psychologique, 118, 377-382. https://www.cairn.info/revue-l-annee-psychologique-2018-4-page-377.htm#
Paradis, J., Rusk, B., Sorenson Duncan, T. & Govindarajan, K. (2017). Children’s second language acquisition of English complex syntax: The role of age, input and cognitive factors. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 37, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190517000022
Sorenson Duncan, T. & Paradis, J. (2016). English language learners’ nonword repetition performance: The influence of age, L2 vocabulary size, length of L2 exposure and L1 phonology. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59, 38-49. https://doi.org/10.1044/2015_JSLHR-L-14-0020
Paradis, J., Schneider, P. & Sorenson Duncan, T. (2013). Discriminating children with language impairment among English language learners from diverse first language backgrounds. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 971-981. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2012/12-0050)
Tessier, A., Sorenson Duncan, T. & Paradis, J. (2013). Developmental trends and L1 effects in early L2 learners’ onset cluster productions. Bilingualism, Language and Cognition, 16, 663-681. https://doi.org/10.1017/S136672891200048X
Blom, E. Paradis, J. & Sorenson Duncan, T. (2012). Effects of input properties, vocabulary size and L1 on the development of third person singular –s in child L2 English. Language Learning, 62, 965-994. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2012.00715.x
Paradis, J., Emmerzael, K., & Sorenson Duncan, T. (2010). Assessment of English language learners: Using parent report on first language development. Journal of Communication Disorders.43, 474-497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2010.01.002