International Association
for the Study of Child Language

Its major activity is the sponsorship of the triennial International Congress for the Study of Child Language. Previous Congresses have been held in Tokyo, Japan (1978), Vancouver, Canada (1981), Austin, USA (1984), Lund, Sweden (1987), Budapest, Hungary (1990), Trieste, Italy (1993), Istanbul, Turkey (1996), San Sebastián, Spain (1999), Madison, USA (2002), Berlin, Germany (2005), Edinburgh, UK (2008), Montreal, Canada (2011), Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2014), Lyon, France (2017), Philadelphia, USA (2021) and Prague, Czechia (2024). The programs of recent Congresses can be found here.

The three-year IASCL membership fee is included in the registration fee for each Congress, so if you've just participated in our 2024 Prague Congress you are an IASCL member until the day before our next Congress in 2027. 

In addition to making sure we have a triannual Congress, the IASCL produces the Child Language Bulletin twice a year. The Bulletin has important news about our Association, book notices, a conference calendar, and other information that is of use to child language researchers everywhere. Each new Bulletin is emailed directly to our members, but we also post the Bulletins on our website here. Members are also eligible for a substantial subscription discount to two leading journals in the field (First Language and the Journal of Child Language), and to the International Journal of Bilingualism.

In order to serve our goal of being as inclusive as possible, we use our membership fees mainly to help support child language scholars from across the globe to attend our Congresses. Read here about the Travel Awards we granted in 2024!

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