Autism & 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?

Yes, I'll try it over there as well - thanks!

My friend has an autistic son who is bilingual. He is schooled in the father's language but speak the mother's language at home. He is now 6 and reads very well in both languages.

Thanks Tanzie - I've only just read your message. I've posted my queston in "Special Needs" as well and have had a few responses which make interesting reading.

I think it's probably down to the individual child as to whether they find it helpful or confusing and probably the approach used as well.

Best regards,
LazyWoman

Hello,

my eldest is autistic but educated in an english mainstream state primary school. We speak only German at home and he's learned nearly all his English at nursery and school.

S&L Therapists say that his English is low average, so not too bad for a bilingual autistic child, I think.

I always take into account that he knows some words only in German and some only in English, if you'd merge this his vocabulary would proably in the average range but even so it's not too bad.

He does make a lot of grammatical errors in German though which are really hard to eliminate, he is quite consistent with his mistakes.

He reads reasonably well in English but can't read much in German, but we haven't put big effort into getting him to learn read in German. He's 7.