Dr Eirini Sanoudaki ‘s research examines language in monolingual and bilingual speakers, focussing on children with developmental conditions such as Down syndrome. She collaborates with the Down's syndrome Association and other external partners on projects studying language and cognitive skills in typical and atypical development, and has published extensively in the field.

She pioneered research on language development in neurodiverse Welsh-English bilingual children, and has attracted UKRI funding for projects in this field. In 2021, she won a national  award for the use of Welsh in the workplace.

She is Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Director of Welsh Language Matters in the School of Arts, Culture and Language and has been Leader of the Bilingualism Pathway for the ESRC/Wales DTP. 

Eirini is passionate about bilingualism, and about encouraging the learning and use of Welsh.

Latest events:

Child Bilingualism: interactive workshop. ESRC Festival of Social Science   

26 October 2022 in Bangor   

3 November 2022 in Cardiff

2021-2025 ESRC Wales DTP doctoral grant (Principal supervisor)

Project: ‘Language Development  in Welsh-English bilingual children with  Down syndrome and autism’

Collaboration with Down's Syndrome Association

Postgraduate Researcher (PhD Bilingualism) 

2018 ESRC/Wales DTP small grant: Collaboration (CoI and PhD Supervisor).

Public engagement project: ‘Bilingualism in children with Down syndrome: workshops for families’

Collaboration with Down's Syndrome Association

PI: Rebecca Ward

2017 ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Major Award: PhD Student Community Outreach Fellowship. (PI and Project Lead).

Project: ‘Childhood Bilingualism in Complementary Schools.’

Fellow: Athanasia Papastergiou

2016 Welsh Crucible grant. (CoI and Bangor Lead).  Duration 9 months

Project: ‘Humour in Welsh-English Bilinguals’

PI Gil Greengross (Aberystwyth), CoI Manon Jones (School of Psychology, Bangor).

2016-2019 ESRC Wales DTP doctoral grant (Principal supervisor)

Second supervisor: Enlli Thomas.

Project: ‘Profiling language abilities in Welsh-English bilinguals with Down syndrome’

Postgraduate Researcher (PhD Bilingualism): Rebecca Ward  

2009-2010 Postdoctoral research grant, Greek State Scholarship Foundation (IKY)

Project: ‘The acquisition of pronominal reference in Greek-speaking children with Down  syndrome’.

Advisor: Spyridoula Varlokosta

PhD Supervision

• Jago Williams. Bilingual development in children with a dual diagnosis of ASD and Down syndrome.MA+PhD ESRC studentship in Bilingualism. Start date September 2021

• Maryam Awawdeh. Exploring the reading comprehension of Arabic-English bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD).  ESRC studentship in Bilingualism. Start date October 2022

• Gareth Caulfield. Exploring immersion education and its role in creating balanced Welsh-English bilinguals. ESRC studentship in Bilingualism. Start date October 2022 
• Bethan Collins. Language and cognitive development in bilingual children. ESRC studentship in Bilingualism. Start date September 2021.

• Laura Maguire.  Bilingualism in individuals with Alzheimer's disease MA+PhD ESRC studentship in Bilingualism.  Start date October 2022

• Rebecca Day. Bilingual development in children with Rett syndrome.MA+PhD ESRC studentship in Bilingualism. Start date September 2019 

• Felicity Parry. Teachers’ recognition of language disorders in bilingual children. PhD Bilingualism. Start date January 2020.

• Athanasia Papastergiou. Language and cognitive abilities in bilingual children.ESRC funded PhD in Bilingualism. Completed 2021

• Rebecca Ward. Profiling language abilities in Welsh-English bilinguals with Down syndrome. ESRC funded PhD in Bilingualism. Completed 2020.

• Maram Alamri. The acquisition of spatial relations by Arabic learners of English. Completed 2020

• Wesam Almehmadi. Pragmatic features in adolescents with Autism. Completed 2019

Teaching

I teach advanced modules on language development and disorders, bilingualism, research methods as well as introductory syntax. I have taught modules across many other areas of linguistics.

• QXL3316/4416 Language Disorders and Bilingualism
• QXL3317/4417 Child Language Acquisition
• QXL3335/4435 Bilingual and Acquisition Issues
• QXL4432 Linguistic Research Methods
• PPP4008 Bilingualism Research and Methods
• QXL4400 MA/MSc Dissertation
• QXL2204 Morphosyntax

Email: e.sanoudaki@bangor.ac.uk

Selected recent conference presentations

Ward, Rebecca, & Sanoudaki, Eirini. (2019) Phonological Awareness in Bilinguals with Down Syndrome, talk at the 2nd International Conference on Bilingualism, University of Malta, Malta 25 – 27 March 2019.

Papastergiou, A., Sanoudaki, E., and Collins, B.(2019) Does minimal exposure to Welsh influence executive functions? Evidence from Welsh-English children talk at the 2nd International Conference on Bilingualism,  University of Malta, Malta 25 – 27 March 2019.

Almehmadi, W, T. Tenbrink and E. Sanoudaki, (2018) Pragmatic and Conversational Features of Arabic-Speaking Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), poster at the Autism Annual Research Conference, 6 September 2018, City University, London.

Ward, R., & E. Sanoudaki (2018) Profiling language abilities in bilinguals with Down syndrome, talk at the Down Syndrome Research Forum, The University of Reading, 17-18 September 2018

Papastergiou, A., Sanoudaki, E., Chondrogianni, V., (2017) A study on the executive functioning of Greek-English bilingual children, oral presentation at the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB), University of Limerick, Ireland,11-15 June 2017.

Ward, Rebecca & Sanoudaki., E. (2017) Bilingualism in children with autism spectrum disorder in Wales, poster at the International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB), University of Limerick, Ireland, 11-15 June 2017.

Almehmadi, W., Tenbrink, T., Sanoudaki, E. (2017) Pragmatic and Conversational Features in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder, poster at the 15th International Pragmatics Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 16-21 July 2017.

Althobaiti, H., Sanoudaki, E., and Kotzoglou, G. (2016) The bilingual advantage: the case of syntactic awareness in Arabic-English bilingual children. Poster presented at the International Conference on Bilingualism in Education, Bangor University, 10-12 June 2016.

Sanoudaki, E., & Bodini, A. (2015) Speech breakdown in a multilingual child. Oral presentation at the International Symposium of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2015 (ISMBS 2015), 7-10 September 2015, Chania, Crete, Greece.

Sanoudaki, E., & Bodini, A. (2015) Dysfluency in multilingual acquisition. Oral presentation at the Child Language Symposium (CLS), 20-21 July 2015, University of Warwick.

Sanoudaki, E., (2013) Investigating formal consonant clusters in Greek child language: evidence from non-word repetition. Oral presentation at the 11th International Conference of Greek Linguistics, 26-29 September 2013, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece.

Sanoudaki, E., Tamburelli, M., Jones, G., & Sowinska, M. (2012) Consonant cluster puzzles: evidence from Polish-English bilingual acquisition. Oral presentation at the 20th Manchester Phonology Meeting, 24th - 26th May 2012.

Sanoudaki, E. & Varlokosta, S. (2011) The acquisition of Binding by Greek-speaking children with Down Syndrome. Poster presented at the GALA 2011 conference, 6-8 September 2011, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Sanoudaki, E. & Varlokosta, S. (2011) Binding in Greek: the importance of task selection. Oral presentation at the 10th International Conference of Greek Linguistics, 1-4 September 2011, Democritous University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece.

Sanoudaki, E. (2008) The acquisition of consonant clusters by Greek-speaking children.  Oral presentation at the Workshop: Consonant Clusters and Structural Complexity, 31 July-2 August 2008, Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Munich.

Sanoudaki, E. (2008) Word initial extrasyllabicity? Evidence from the acquisition of Greek. Oral presentation at the 16th Manchester Phonology Meeting, 22-24 May 2008, Manchester.

 Sanoudaki, E. (2007) Word initial clusters in acquisition. Oral presentation at the Child Language Seminar, 18-20 July 2007, The University of Reading, UK.