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Last week we introduced you to bilingual English/Spanish speech language professional, Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, who debunked three common myths about speech development in bilingual children. Now, we are excited to announce that Dr. Kester has joined the impressive panel of bilingual experts that collaborate in our weekly series-Ask an Expert.
We invite you to visit Dr. Kester’s website, Bilinguistics, to learn more about her and her team.
They are “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.”
Click here to send her your questions regarding speech development in bilingual children.
Does my Son Have a Speech Delay Because He’s Bilingual?
Today´s question was sent by Claudia McGlothlin who´s raising two children using the OPOL (One-parent-one-language) method.
Hi. My name is Claudia and I am raising a 34 month-old boy and a 14 month-old girl, both bilingual in English and Spanish. I am from Perú and my husband is from the U.S.
I only speak to my children in Spanish and my husband speaks in English to them. Sometimes he repeats the words that he knows in Spanish but I keep telling him to stop. Some friends told me that the kids can get confused.
My son is not talking yet. He developed his own sign system and he only has a few words: go- jugo-globo-mami-dada-tres(when I count “uno, dos y…” he finishes my sentence)-bus- agua.
I am starting to get concerned on when he will be talking? He completely understands both languages, but I can tell he understands more Spanish since he spends more time with me. Is this normal? Thanks.
Hi Claudia,
Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
First, let me commend you for your efforts in raising your children as bilinguals. In today’s world, speaking more than one language will open many doors for your children. There are three points in your letter that I want to address. I’ll address them in the order you presented them.
You commented that you tell your husband to stop repeating the Spanish words he knows for fear that your children will get confused. Stop telling him to stop! “One parent-one language” is one way that people raise bilingual children but it is not the only way. Children learn to differentiate their two languages when each parent speaks a different language, when one parent speaks both languages and the other speaks one language, and when both parents speak both languages. Research indicates that there is no evidence that children with normal language development or children with language impairment are “confused” by learning two languages at the same time. The more language input your child receives, the better.
Your son is 34-months old and is only using a few words. This is not typical and it is not a result of a bilingual environment. Children between 2-1/2 to 3-years of age typically have vocabularies of several hundred words and converse in phrases and simple sentences. I have 31-month-old twins who live in a bilingual environment. One has typical language development and converses in sentences. The other has delayed language skills with a vocabulary of less than 50 words. They are in the same home and school environments but have very different levels of language skills. The bilingual environment is not the culprit.
Your son understands both languages well. This is a great indicator of future language skills. Children who have comprehension skills similar to their peers are those who are most likely to catch up to their peers in expressive language skills.
I recommend that you have your son evaluated by a bilingual speech-language pathologist who is well-versed in bilingual language development.
To find one in your area, go to the website for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and select Find a Professional. Follow the prompts to put in your city or zip code and the language(s) you speak. It will give you a list of providers in your area who can help you.
Sincerely,
Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Bilinguistics Speech and Language Services, Austin, Texas
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Hi, I just wanted to add. My son is trilingual (english, spanish and russian) since birth. He didn’t start speaking until he was over 3 years old. The teachers at his school were constantly telling me there was something wrong with my son.
I knew there was nothing wrong with him, he just has too many languages in his head. As a matter of fact, he didn’t start speaking any one language in particular, however, he had his own language with over 50 vocabulary words that we understood completely.
At around 3.5 years old he started speaking and is fluent in Spanish and English. He understand Russian 100% but since I’m the only one speaking it to him, he doesn’t use it often.
Here’s also a great video for bilingual children:)
http://www.travelexperta.com/2009/04/bilingual-babies-are-brainier.html
Marina, congratulations on raising a trilingual baby in Central America and thanks for sharing your story.
You were a strong mami to listen to your own intuition and know there was nothing wrong with your child.
Thanks for the link. It´s a great video.
¡Hola Marina! Let me add to your peace of mind with a colleague here in Tampa, FL whose daughter was able to speak in five languages at the age of ten after having been ‘labeled’ many things in the public school system.
My friend would not accept their labels nor their reasonings, and even though her daughter verbalized much later than her peers in the pre-K years and used a limited vocabulary in English in the early elementary years, I can tell you that girl blows the socks off anyone who witnesses her speaking in five languages (her native Vietnamese, English, Mandarin, French and Spanish!).
Continue on with your wonderful language journey with your children with confidence and passion!
Boca Beth’s last blog post..Music Monday! Enjoy Boca Beth’s Bilingual Version of Chocolate!
We multi-lingual families need to stick together and ignore the comments of people who have never met anyone who speaks more than one language. Actually, if I haven’t met kids who were raised with multiple languages and see them go from one language to the next as though it’s nothing, I too probably would’ve been doubtful. So that’s why I’m sooooooooooo keen on making sure my son gets this gift from me. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind adding Mandarin:)
You’re right, Marina, we do need to stick together! And isn’t it wonderful we have Spanglishbaby to thank for connecting us!?
I think we’ll try Mandarin next, too.
Marina, I am Russian too and my husband is English, we’ve been told by “well wishers” that our son is delayed in speech. We were offered by English relatives to drop Russian language to let our son speak quicklier in English. I am seeing a speech therapist for our nearly-3-y.o. son Ryan on Tuesday, but I don’t expect that doctor to say anything apart from “your son needs a therapy”, and his speech development is not normal.
I speak with Ryan in Russian, we speak with my husband in English, as he doesn’t know Russian, my husband speaks with Ryan in English. From 2 years of age Ryan became later in speech development than other kids. By that time he said only “mummy”, Daddy, car, ok, hello, and “daj” in Russian. He never waved “goodbye” to other kids, just looked at them silently when they were leaving. He started walking from 18 months, but he walked straight away and never fell, even now when he climbs up somewhere high, he carefully counts his own strengh and ability to either climb higher or jump off, and hardly ever gets any injuries. He is very well developed physically, he plays football, can hit a golf ball into a hole properly, can balance, eat with fork, spoon, and even cut food into smaller pieces with a plastic knife. He never had any problems in his nursery group, he defends smaller or weaker kids, shares toys, and is very caring with animals and plants. He can do most of the household things, like turn the light on and off, turn a top off a plastic bottle to get a drink, sort the shapes, colours, colour pistures with coloures suggested, open and close doors. Everybody thinks that Ryan is clever enough not to talk, because he can just come to a child and talk gybbrish to him or her, and make expressions on his face, and also use mimics and gestures, so eventually he gets exactly what he wanted, but we are very worried now about him not talking. Ryan can say few “ultimate” words which he uses all the time to get what he wants without further effort: “: “look”, “look over there”,”look at that” and points at the object, “oh-oh”, “ouch’” when it hurts,”wow’, “ok”, “mummy”, “daddy”, “hello”, waving “bye-bye” starting from half-year ago, says very clearly: “here you go”, “here you are”, “come”, “daj” in Russian, “na” in Russian. He is very interested in mechanisms, and is very inventious, but we are very concerned now whether we will have to wait a bit until he starts speaking by himself, or force him to speak by some special medicines, training, pretending that we don’t understand his mumbling, or whatever else… Please could you tell us if your son was developing in a similar way? If yes, it would give us a hope that he will talk normally by the age of 4, which is a school age in Britain.
Maybe Ryan is too clever, or lazy, or a complete retard, we don’t know anymore, and the more we read that late speech development can affect a child’s life, the more we are concerned about it. Everywhere we find only “facts” that bilingual invironment should not cause a speech delay…
Marina, waiting for your reply, and thanks
Katya