Should I expect speech delay with 2 languages

[Marionlam]

Hi,

My little boy is nearly 2 and brought up OPOL - I speak the minority language to him most of the time (French), although as we live in England he hears me speak the majority language to other people a fair amount. Daddy and nearly everyone else speaks English to him (and I try and discourage people from trying out their 5 words of badly pronounced French on him!).

He is clearly behind his friends of similar age on the language front. He understands a lot in both languages, but his vocabulary is very limited, his pronunciation is often miles from the actual word and he tends to nod or shake his head rather than say yes/oui or no, for example. He points at things to make himself understood rather than try and say the word, and tends to cry rather than calling Mummy.

I've been told by lots of people that it is to be expected with a bi-lingual upbringing, but I'm wondering when i should actually worry!

Anyone with similar experience out there who could comment...?

How many recognisable words does he say in each language?

I think you need to be careful here. Bilingualism cancause a delay but doesn´t necessarily.. Both my children spoke bang on time (DD was early) despite being OPOL, as did my friends' children who are in a similar boat. I have heard of cases where there is a delay too but what I'm trying to say is not to take that as always being the case. Bilingual or not, if your little boy does need help, best look for it now, very early days, than wait..

On the other hand, you will need to beware of well meaning healthcare professionals etc who know nothing about bilingualism, trying to tell you that bilingualism is the cause of any delay he may have.

Two separate issues, imho

DNephew had a delay, DNiece didn't. DNephew has since had a delay in several other areas of development. DSIL is annoyed as everyone told her it was due to bilingualism, but now she thinks he may just have a bit of a problem, and he's now 4.5 and she's worried about helping him.

We'll see in a few months if DS has any delay.

I second mamsnet's advice.

Bilingualism does NOT cause language delay. It is the global norm. I am a Speech and Language Therapist working in a multilingual area. If you are speaking two languages, you may find that if, say, he has 50 words overall, 20 are in one language and 30 in another. There may be words for items in one language that don't exist (yet) in the other language or he may have two words for some items which he will address to you in French and his dad in English. However, overall he should be meeting general milestones.

You can have a bilingual assessment in the NHS, it is quite effective at this age as the norms are relatively static (though harder to judge with vocabulary to be honest).

At two, you want him to be able to follow two word level instructions such as:
Put the car in the bowl
Put the apple in the box (where all four items are present, and you mix up the instructions, say it on one breath stream, don't point or offer additional cues or clues etc).

This should be relatively easy to replicate in French (sadly I did German at school, so can't give an example). You would want him to be able to understand these types of instructions in both languages and have 50 spoken words overall as a minimum, with these words being relatively recognisable as their referents even if they are not fully intelligible.

Norms for this age range here, again doesn't matter what language these are achieved in.

Also, the sound norms don't really apply here as he may have other sounds that are common in French, although you would still hope that there would be a range of at least 8 sounds and a number of different syllable types (e.g. ba, mama, bebe, daddy - cv, cvc, cvcv with same and alternative vowels, again may be some variation with French). My son is 23 months and uses an "r" sound because dh and I are Irish, whereas this would be more unusual in the average British toddler who is exposed to a non-rhotic accent.

As a practical measure, if you are concerned he is not using 50 words, try to support him by getting him to copy sounds. A toy microphone can be used to make a game of this. Giving choices e.g. "apple or orange?" can help. My 23 month old won't always understand that he is being given a choice and say "yes" but he also will repeat the last word e.g. "orange". Getting practice at saying words is crucial really. When he points, say the word clearly e.g. Orange. I ask ds to say the word sometimes too, but you need to take care with this as it can be off-putting if demanding and needs to be used judiciously as a technique. I know you are doing OPOL, but if you could recruit someone else French speaking to model e.g. where you give a choice and they say the word, then receive the item, this might also help.

DD1 appeared to be language delayed by comparison with monolingual peers when she was two, but I agree with working that her total vocabulary in both languages was probably bang on target. She was exposed to English only for her first year at home with us, then went to a German-only nursery at 13 months and totally threw herself into learning her absorbing and learning the second language. As a consequence her English seemed to stagnate for a while - I don't think she came out with a new English word for months. By the time she was two she could clearly understand both languages well but her active expression in both was comparatively weak - then when she was three/four it suddenly all came together and she was basically at the same level in both languages as her peers were in just one. It was as if she had needed an extended period to absorb the differences between the languages, and once that was clear she was happy to activate them both. Now she's thirteen and equally happy reading either Shakespeare or Schiller.

In my own experience, as well as that of the authors of many books on the subject, bilingualism/trilingualism does NOT cause speech delay.

Some children are quick to speak, others take a little longer. In my own experience girls speak a little earlier and separate the languages more than boys. My own dd spoke very early and even now (aged 9) is quite advanced in both her languages (even more than her monolingual peers), whereas my ds was a relatively late speaker and even now (aged 7) his grammar in both languages isn't that great.

My ds speaks german with his father and grandmother and english with me/everyone else. I was quite worried between 18mths and 2 as he seemed so far behind other children his age, he understood well but only just made the 50 word thing (used to sing rather than name things eg humming baa baa black sheep for a sheep!) However a couple of weeks after his second birthday he suddenly started speaking more and linking words in English and now the german is improving too (he's 2.3) and he's catching up rapidly. Somehow he just needed a bit more time to get it together, perhaps your ds will be similar?

Thanks for all your comments. The 'Talking Point' website is useful, but I guess utlimately they all end up recommending an assessment. The difficulty is, DS is quite shy and doesn't tend to say very much in front of strangers, so I'm not sure it will reflect the true situation at all.

I'd say he probably has about 10 clear-ish words in French, and about the same or maybe a few more in English. The rest is mostly guesswork from our part. On the other hand, he was an early walker and I think is quite advanced on the physical front. His understanding is on a par with his friends in both languages I'd say (although he suffers from selective hearing, but that's just men, right?).

He goes to nursery 3 days a week and the carers keep telling me not to worry, that it is to be expected with 2 languages. They have seen bi-lingual kids before and tell me it's quite common...

I don't think he's clicked that Mummy and Daddy speak different languages. If I manage to teach him a new word and then Daddy uses the english version, he seems to get confused and ends up using a mixture of the two. We're trying to teach him 'yes' and 'no' rather than nodding/shaking head at the moment. So for example after a while with me, he'll start saying 'oui', but then he'll say 'oui' to Daddy, repeat various combinations of the two until Daddy finally gets a 'yes', and when he next talks to me he'll take a while to switch back to 'oui'. I tend to say things like 'Mummy speaks french and in french we say oui, but in English Daddy says yes'. It gets complicated!! How do you all approach this?

Marion, we are a French (me)/English (DH) family. I don't think DD was behind at 20 months but she was not combining words much and her vocabulary was quite narrow (can't remember how many words but no one but me understood her!). But she then had massive leaps and bounds starting around 2yo and still does, it is stupefying. In the last six months (she is now 2.8) she has also started differentiating languages, so if she asks me "maman, du lait s'il te plait" and I tell her in French to ask papa cos I am busy, she will automatically switch to English to ask her dad ("daddy, can I have milk, please?"). It is fascinating! She still mixes English and French a fair amount when she speaks but she is aware there are two codes and it is not holding her back at nursery. Our current challenge is that she is rejecting the minority language so I (with our French nounou) am working hard on that.

Sorry, I am rambling but what I am trying to say is that while there may be a SLD issue, it may also be that you have a late bloomer who is analysing everything and will turn into a chatterbox soon!

Is having fewer than 50 words at 21 months a problem that needs investigating? DS is 21 months, I and his nanny speak Italian to him, but pretty much everything else is in English. I'd say he has about 15-20 words he uses consistently, mostly in Italian. He understands Italian well and English too, though slightly less so. And he won't say yes, or nod: we have to infer an affirmative answer from the lack of no. Should we be concerned?

Sorry to hijack the thread somewhat, but we have quite similar concerns...

Marionlam
We never encouraged the DC to speak in one or the other language, just let it come naturally.

So in your example, if your DH says, "Would you like a biscuit?" and your DS answers, "Oui", then your DH would reply, "Yes? Yes, you would like a biscuit. Right, then Daddy will get you a biscuit.".

Repetition of the word in English, without confusing him with explanations that he does not yet understand. And without asking him to repeat the English word.

That understanding comes eventually, you don't have to teach it as such.

My children were both late speakers, but I know bilingual children who were early talkers. They are both completely within the norm range now (7yo and 9yo), although they sometimes mispronounce some sounds, but we are working on that.

Thanks - the last few comments made me feel a lot better actually. My little man is probably just taking his time. Keep you posted! x

Hello

we are Italian but my two girls were both born in Britain that we left when dd1 was 5 and dd2 was 22 months.

Compared to other kids their age they both spoke later, and I astill amazed when I hear 18month olds say lots of words because my experience was so different! still the delay eventually evened out, I personally think 2 is a bit young to be concerned.

My girls have continued education in an English speaking school, even though now they are completely surrounded by Italian. I have noticed that the two languages progress at different paces, so one month you'll see big improvements in one and not the other and viceversa, but now my eldest at 10, is almost perfectly bilingual, which is amazing.

I wouldn't worry at this stage yet.

Hi,

Children speach develop in different way. There are children who won't speak even a words for a long time (2-3 years of age) than from one day to another they start to speak in sentences like their peers. However there are some speech problems for children, but 2 years of age extremly early to diced if he has or not. It is just the fact that children develop a bit differently. I do not think bilingualism should cause any delay. I think it is like if a child learns how to eat it won't cause delay to learn how to drink, probably they learn it together and after they learnt properly, the child won't use the glass for eat a toast. Two or more languages develop next to each other.
I have a son who is bilingual started to speak when he was 1 and a couple of monthbut in the other hand he was 9-10 month old when he sat up or he was more than 1 year old when he started to walk.
I think your little boy is very clever. Children won't learn anything until they do not need. If you understand from crying that he needs you, why he should put more effort in it and say "mummy please come here"?. If he shake his head and you understand it means no/yes, why he should make effort to say "no" or "yes". Children are very clever and are always doing the things that is best for them. Try to pretend that you do not understand him from his movement and his speach will develop very rapidly. (I did the same when my son did not want to walk, not because he was not able to, just because sitting in a pushchair or being in my arm were more comfortable him. So once I asked him if he would like to go for a walk and he said yes, but I meant on foot and he meant with the pushchair. Couple of time like this and he gave up and started to walk.)

hi rrbrigi and others,

i'm happy to have come accross this thread. my DD is 2.5 also bilingual. i was starting to get worried because all her friends same age are properly talking (in sentences) and she is just about aligning words. her cousin 3 months older (also bilingual) is very advanced and sounds like a 5 y old. well i say started to get worried but i'm a worrier and for ages i've been feeling guilty because i'm not a talkative person. i wish i wasn't such a worrier because i'm so tired of the guilt trip.
from the thread, there are 2 points that stick out for me
1- my niece is probably a genius anyway but her mum is the one who speaks english as almost everybody around her, french is spoken by her dad so it fell in place i imagine. in my DD's case, i'm the one who speaks french, i don't work anymore so she's with me most of the time, it must be slightly confusing for her to establish the dominant language. is it french because the one who speaks the most to her is me? or is it english because well... everybody else is?
2- 'Children won't learn anything until they need'. that makes sense. my DD is clever. she understand when i give her instructions, so she HAS those words in her vocab but she has never been a parrot, i'm sure one day she will give me instructions.
it's also obvious that i'm not the only one with same worries, and in fact it's certainly healthy to be worried.

Marionlam
We are in exactly the same situation in terms of who speaks French/English in the house. My dd is 32 months now but didn't say much at all until 28 months. So compared to other kids her age, she didn't seem to say much at all, which often made me feel slightly awkward/worried during playdates as the other kids her age or sometimes younger would say stuff to her and she would just keep silent.

She was never a "parrot" in the sense that some children seem to repeat everythign they hear but she didn't used to do that. The other reason too could be that she spent a lot of time with French at home (5 days a week) only to be surrounded with English socially/at the weekend when my oh was there.
Somehow sth clicked a few months ago and she started saying some words. She has rapidly progressed to sentences and now knows a wide range of vocab in both languages. Some of the words she says are quite long too (like "temperature") and her pronunciation of them is pretty accurate. Her French is stronger than her English but English is catching up fast.
I wouldn't worry. A lot of my friends with kids who spoke early didn't emphasise the minority language as much as we did. I have a couple of friends whose children now speak to them in English and whose speaking in the minority language is far less developed. So they are fluent in English but sometimes struggle to either understand or say sth in the minority language. In turn their mothers are now struggling with developing the minority language and tend to respond in English as it seems easier to avoid frustration etc ...
Seeing our dd now and how she can sort out both languages already is reassuring me that we did the right thing. It takes a bit of patience but in the end it's paid off. So I would say stick with what you're doing.

Thanks Doodleduck.
One things which certainly became clear to me in the last year of so is that people who say how easy it is to teach a second language to a young child have never been in our shoes - it is an extra challenge when bringing kids up is already one big mass of challenges, and i can see why some people just give up. God knows what will happen when the homework battles start!
Having said that, I have never yet been ready to switch to English. Somehow, once the relationship is established in one language it's very difficult to change that. I guess I love him in French!

Yes, the thing is I don't know how much teaching there is to do to be honest. The main thing is to have fun with language whatever it might be and then sort it out in the right box, as it were. I guess patience is the main thing on our part, as well as avoiding frustration which sometimes isn't always easy. I think they do pick everything up and at one point everything falls into place in their little heads and they can start using the language themselves. Our dd is still a fairly reflective type who won't do anything until she is confident she is doing it right. Maybe your boy is similar?

Our dd is now sorting out the 2 languages going 'Maman lune', 'Daddy moon', which I find hilarious and so endearing but really 6 months ago when she was 26 months and she wouldn't even say anything at all, I wouldn't have dreamt of that. So don't give up! When it falls into place it is worth it and they do do it pretty effortlessly.
I must say I have also found some aspects of the London mums scene fairly competitive in many areas, one of them being language. And this doesn't help if your child doesn't 'perform'!