Meet our 2023 South African Women in Science Awards finalists
Ms Nyeleti Precious Mabaso
Ms Nyeleti Precious Mabaso obtained a bachelor's degree in speech-language and hearing therapy from Stellenbosch University. She is currently enrolled for a master's in speech-language pathology at the same institution, with a focus on cross-linguistic testing of a narrative assessment protocol to grade bilingual English/Tshivenda and monolingual preschool children in South Africa.
In her current research, Mabaso is investigating the cultural and linguistic equivalence of the language assessment instrument known as the Multilingual Assessment Instrument of Narratives (MAIN), which she recently adapted for Tshivenda. She is also investigating the narrative macrostructure of monolingual preschool children and comparing their narrative data with Afrikaans and isiXhosa-speaking children with the intent to review their developmental patterns and similarities in narrative macrostructure. She hopes that her research will help clinicians, researchers and educators to distinguish developmental language delays and the effects of bilingualism in children from multi-cultural backgrounds. By providing this instrument that is culturally and linguistically valid for use among indigenous cultures in South Africa, many children will have access to early intervention, which will contribute to advanced literacy development and academic success.
Mabaso was named the best cultural language activist by the Tygerberg Student Union of Stellenbosch University in 2020 for adapting and translating MAIN to Tshivenda. In 2021 she was awarded the AB Clemons award by the South African Speech Language and Hearing Association for producing the best research project in South Africa. Mabaso's adapted MAIN in Tshivenda was published in a renowned MAIN repository at the Leibniz Centre – General Linguistics in Berlin, Germany. In 2021 she presented her research at an international conference, Text & Tea, hosted by LITMUS MAIN in Berlin Germany.
