Autism & a second language

[LazyWoman]

Hi,

Does anyone have any experience of teaching their autistic children to speak another language? We home-ed our two autistic kids - now 11 & 10. DD is quite fluent but DS is still struggling with spoken English although making good progress. Do you think it would help or hinder their English if they are taught French or Spanish?

[coppertop]

I don't have any experience of the teaching side of things but I know that my ds1 (5.5yrs old and autistic) seems to love learning new languages. I was very surprised, to be honest.

He didn't really speak at all until 3+ and even then still needed a lot of SALT before he could speak in sentences. Since starting school he has been learning some French and German and has done really well. He often asks me how to say words in French so I just go along with this.

I think it's one of those areas that really seems to depend on the individual child. I think it's worth giving it a try if you want to.

[LazyWoman]

Thanks Coppertop,

My 11 yr old DD has been going to Le Club Francais every Wednesday for nearly a year and has picked up a bit of vocab - to be honest, we started her there more for some extra social experience rather than the French. She is quite fluent in written and spoken English so I don't think it presents a problem for her. But my 10 yr old DS has still got a way to go before reaching full fluency. We were considering moving abroad - France/Andorra at some point in the near future but didn't want his language abilities to go backwards - it would be hard enough battling through the other educational /schooling problems. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has had similar experiences.

Good luck with your little boy!

[wads]

interested to see anyone elses experience with this. I have a 5 yo Ds with no dx yet but very probably autistic. I live abroad so he heard 2 languages from birth & at fist we thought this was the possible reason for his big language delay. However although his English is still far ahead of his Portuguese he has made great progress this year & I've managed to overcome my paranoia after reading somewhere a while back that autistic children can't learn a 2nd language. His increase of Portuguese hasn't affected his English at all, in fact now both languages seem to be making similar progress.

[tensing]

Henry loves foriegn lanuages, but then he has a general love of words.

[Homsa]

Wow this is interesting, hope some more people post on this thread!
This question has been bothering me for ages. My DS is 2.8 and doesn't really speak at all (has about 10 unclear words). We haven't got a diagnosis yet - though it has been indicated that it's probably either autism or SLI. We spoke two languages to him until he turned 2, then panicked and dropped one, to my great regret. I'm expecting my second child in 7 weeks' time and can't decide what to do - speak my native language to the new baby when DS is not around? Give up on the idea of bilingualism?

[PeachyClair]

DS1 is Aspergers and has had to learn Welsh at school as it is compulsory (he's 6). He really enjoys it, more so than English, and I would say it has had no effect whatsoever on his English development.

I would go for it, it gives DS1 a feeling he is achieving and that is worth it.

[ernest]

not me but my neighbour. We live in Switzerland. The spoken language is German. Neighbour has (quite severly according to her) autistic ds. He now attends special school (think he's been going about 2 years. He has coped well with school being all german. They speak Tamil at home