Project title

From language barriers to meaningful participation: Building technology-supported scaffolds towards equitable dementia care for migrants

Research question

What is needed for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technology as an enablement tool to facilitate meaningful interaction in multilingual dementia care?

Project description

Language barriers contribute to a heightened mental health burden among older migrants with dementia and their informal caregivers, and in the Netherlands Alzheimer’s disease is up to four times more prevalent within migrant populations. Yet dementia services and care remain underused by migrant communities. Enablement, an approach to person-centred dementia care, offers strong potential for designing activities and spaces that invite meaningful interaction, even where language itself is a barrier.

Keijzer will investigate how Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technology, ranging from low-tech communication cards to digital applications, can support such interaction. Building on the use of customisable memory books in reminiscence therapy, she will examine how AAC can move beyond simple translation to enable meaningful engagement in the absence of a shared language, with the aim of developing a scalable prototype.

Selected publications

  • Keijzer, M. (in press). Language learning in later adulthood. In: Chapelle, C. Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (2nd ed.). Wiley.
  • Jin, Y., Keijzer, M., Jiang, N. & Ren, J. (2026). Pre-adolescent learners’ foreign language classroom anxiety profiles and correlates: insights from Chinese primary school students of English. Perceptual and Motor Skills, https://doi.org/10.1177/00315125261418361
  • Cardaio, A. & Keijzer, M. (2025). Comparing the impact of lifelong multilingualism and later-life language learning on cognitive and brain reserve in older adults with cognitive decline due to Alzheimer’s disease: A systematic review. Journal of Language and Aging Research, 3(2), 181-223. https://doi.org/10.15460/jlar.2025.3.2.1736
  • Brouwer, J., van den Berg, F., Knooihuizen, R., Loerts, H. & Keijzer, M. (2025). Language Learning as a Non-Pharmacological Intervention in Older Adults with (Past) Depression. Brain Sciences, 15(9), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15090991
  • van den Berg, F., Buurke, R., Brouwer, J., Loerts, H., Knooihuizen, R., Bartelds, M. & Keijzer, M. (2025). Bilingual engagement and cognition across the adult lifespan: Insights from regional minority language speakers in the north of the Netherlands. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1017/s136672892510062X