advice sought on speech delay and bilingualism

[luria]

My son (2 years, 8 months) has speech delay.

He has been seen by the local NHS SALT, but only for observations. We were hoping that they would offer us speech therapy sessions after the assessment, but have learned that they only provide advice to parents and nurseries and do not do individual sessions.

We also had an appointment with a community paediatrician, whose diagnosis (taking into account the comments by the SALT) is: speech delay with the history of concern about social communication difficulties. The paediatrician, however, did not think that the concerns regarding the social communication were so severe to diagnose him with any disorder; and we agree with this. The paediatrician will review our son's progress in six months; and in the mean time we will co-ordinate strategy with the nursery to follow the advice given by the SALT.

However, in the past month or so, our son has been adding at least a couple of words per day to his vocabulary (which is the biggest 'leap' we have seen so far). Whenever he sees an unfamiliar object or a picture in a picture book, he points to it and looks at us to tell him the word.

We speak Serbo-Croatian at home, but our son goes to the nursery three days per week, and we have noticed that though his understanding of Serbo-Croatian is much better than his understanding of English; his expressive language is mostly English. So, for example, if I ask him in Serbo-Croatian to point to any object or a picture in a picture book with a 'where is this or that?'-type of question, he always points to the right object or picture; or if I ask him for example 'bring me the green balloon' in Serbo-Croatian, he will bring me the right colour balloon. If I ask him the same questions in English, he does not always respond correctly, so that is how we know that his receptive language is better in Serbo-Croatian than in English.

However, if I ask him 'what is this?' type of question, even if I ask in Serbo-Croatian, he will almost always respond in English. For example, if we ask him 'sta je ovo?' (meaning 'what is this?') while pointing to an apple, he will say 'apple', and not 'jabuka' (which is Serbo-Croatian for 'apple'). Or if he is making a verbal request to initiate play for example, he will always use an English word ('ball', 'car', 'bubbles', etc.)

Again, we are very happy that he has started using more words lately and that he has started making verbal requests; but his vocabulary is still very limited for his age (he has about 60 words he uses regularly) and we've only heard him attempt a two-word phrase on three separate occasions. Also, he is much more 'talkative' at home than he is at the nursery.

Now, here is my dilemma: should we continue talking to him in Serbo-Croatian, or should we grab this chance when he has started to learn many new words in English to expand on those in English? As he has speech delay which is causing us a lot of anxiety, would we help him more by switching to English now? The general advice of the SALT is to continue speaking in our mother language at home; but if we are supposed to expand on his language when he uses a single word (e.g. when he points to an apple saying 'apple' in English, we should say 'red apple'), expanding with a Serbo-Croatian adjective with an English noun doesn't sound logical. Yet again, if I respond in English, it would mean switching from one language to another, which is also not good.

I would very much appreciate some advice!

Thank you!!!

From the little I know about bilingualism, I would say keep speaking in S-C. The general feeling from linguistics research as I understand it is that children easily sort out exposure to more than one language, it can delay things a bit but they work it out, particularly if (as in your case) one domain is associated with one language (home) and one domain (nursery) with another. It is normal too for them to understand both languages but only produce words in the dominant language, when they are starting to talk.

I don't know much about bilingualism and speech delay but since your SALT is advising you to keep using your mother tongue at home I would stick with that. On expanding when he uses a single word, check back with the SALT but it would make sense to me that that particular thing should happen in English, but this will be quite a small proportion of your interactions with him. I wouldn't worry too much about the expanding meaning using the odd English phrase; kids can cope with quite a lot of code-mixing without difficulty.

I would say keep talking in your native language to him at home - the two languages will sort themselves out by the time he goes to school AS LONG AS you are consistent. Once he goes to school his active English will probably be stronger, unless you go back to your native country for at least a month a year or so, where he speaks nothing but Serbo-Croat for that time.

Bilinguals are often speech delayed, especially when they are monolingual at home and then get exposed to the second language in nursery. They seem to need a longer period of time to absorb the rules for the new language, and while this is going on they make less progress in their first language. But then all of a sudden, both languages click, and they might just end up suddenly speaking fluently in both.

It's worked well with both my DDs, who are now 12 and 8 and absolutely fluent in both, with a good reading age. But DD1 especially was no more advanced than your Ds at 2.8. According to the nursery, she said very little there for a year (although was clearly very happy).

'The Bilingual Family' is a good resource, can't remember the authors. Philip and Edith Something?

Don't give up on the S-C. The English will come.

If you are asking him a question and he answers in English then say yes that is a "whatever S-C is for apple" then if you wanted you could add - in English that is apple (in that sentence I would only say the word apple in English)

My DD3 was delayed in her speech. We hit a sudden turning point, in both languages at the same time, when she was 3 and a half.

Thank you all for these helpful advices! I wouldn't worry at all about English at this moment and would concentrate on our mother tongue if my son didn't have speech delay. However, I've been through a terrible period of anxiety about my boy due to his speech delay (as any parent would be, especially as some people who observed him had raised concerns about his social communication) and am over the moon now that he has started to use more words. And considering that the words he is using now are mostly English, I worry that I may delay him even further if I do not join in with his efforts to communicate, in whatever language he prefers now; but persist using our mother tongue... I understand that there is a speech therapist who sometimes takes part in this forum and who is specialised in bilingualism and speech delay. Would be over the moon to get their opinion, if they happen to see this thread. Also, any other parents who had once faced a similar dilemma, please get in touch! Thank you all!!!

I think as long as you are acknowledging his communication by continuing to carry on the the conversation e.g.

You, SC - what's that?
Him, E- apple
You, SC - Yes it's an apple. It's a red apple. Do you want an apple?
Him, E - Yes

then it's okay to continue as you are.

He'll get the 'Yes, it's an apple, it's a red apple' at nursery in English showing the correct expansion in context in that language.

I've not worked with a child who's had a speech delay but I have had fairly significant experience of EAL children where I either speak or at least understand their home language. Giving the correct answer to a question, even if it's not the langauge you were using in a conversation, does demonstrate that they're understanding and communicating. As far as I understand it the root of communication problems isn't the fact there are 2 words for the same thing! Speech delay/an inability to communicate in one of the languages can be a problem if you don't understand that language but you do and you can continue to communicate whichever language he chooses - just make sure if he gets an exercises from the SALT that you do them in the langauge that's given.

The person you want is moondog BTW but I've not seen her around for a while.