DD needs speech therapy in German, any experiences?

[kindersurprise]

My DD is 5 and we have just been for the U9 checkup. The doc noticed that she is not pronouncing the Sch (Schwein, Schatz, Schule) properly and has refered us to a speech therapist.

Has anyone had experience of this? I do not know what the therapist is like and am a bit unsure how she will react to the fact that DD is being brought up bilingual.

Is there any way to test her speech in English? I have not noticed that she is mispronouncing any words, but I didn't notice the sch thing either so maybe I am deaf to her speech defects.

sch is a difficult sound to pronounce. Can she pronounce the english 'th'?

You ought to be referred to a speech therapist who is experienced in bilingualism.

Here in Paris the bilingual schools require children to have an assessment with a speech therapsit when they enter primary school (at 5/6) to ensure that any issues are dealt with sooner rather than later. The speech therapists must be experienced in the language combinations of that particular child for the assessment to have any value.

yes I agree with Anna. The speech therapist will need to assess her pronunciation of english sounds.

my ds is receiving speech therapy in Switzerland becasue he can't roll his 'r's ( I can't at all, he's miles better than me, wish I could have speech therapy), and also for his 's's.

He's also bi lingual (english mother tongue). How long has your dd been in Germany?

I haven't had any concerns tbh and his speech therapist is great and he's making progress already after just a couple of weeks and it's all done through play so he really enjoys it.

I also haven't noticed any problems with his spoken English. I'm not sure what you mean when you say you don't know how the therapist will react to her billigualism?

Wow, thanks for your quick replies.

DD was born in Germany, German is her strongest language although she also speaks English very well.

Have not noticed her ths but will listen more carefully.

With regard to the therapist, the speech therapist in my DD kindergarten is a bit ... less than encouraging when it comes to bilingualism. She is of the school of thought that they should learn German well first (she has never said this out load, but it is apparent in how she speaks to me and the questions she asks) That is why I am a bit unsure how the therapist will react.

There is a good chance that the therapist will have experience with English children as she is in Mönchengladbach where there is a large British army base. Will definately ask her.

Thanks for your replies

kindersurprise - my understanding (from everything I have read and experienced) is that the school of thought that only one language should be learnt well first, before any other, is outdated and actually wrong. Nearly all children are capable of learning to understand and converse fluently in two languages, simultaneously and from birth onwards. Furthermore, children should not, wherever possible, be deprived of learning a language that will enable to converse with their parents and other relatives in the language of their culture. However, it is hard to learn more than two languages simultaneously from birth and often recommended to drop potential third (and fourth) languages to avoid confusion.

However, it is apparently important that children learn to read and write first in one language (usually the language of the country they reside in ie the language of the environment) before attempting to learn to read and write in the other language. Normally a child master reading and writing in one year and can start learning to read and write in the other language one year after beginning in the environmental language.

Snap Kindersurprise Dd's paed said the same thing at her U9 last week. Said it wasn't bad but we should send her to speech therapy to get it sorted out before school next year. Dh was surprised that I hadn't noticed and I told him she doesn't have the problem in English - and tbh I hadn't noticed it in German either. Neither had her kg teacher. Ds2 had the same at his U9 but his doc then just said we should practise it with him.
Am a bit sceptical as these days every other child round here does to occupational therapy or speech therapy. Bleeding industry I reckon. Her "th"s are fine, btw.
Her English is much better than her German and the doc said that prob accounts partly for it but it's also v common. The mouth (teeth, gums, jaw etc.) all work slightly differently in diff langs.
Dh thinks it's a good chance for her to get more German ("free lessons") but I'm "another sodding thing" when we've got the headache of the kg and the school - another story.
You usually make an appt and have a talk with the therapist so you can weigh them up. Also under no obligation to go to the kg one. I think you've a good reason not to go to her because you need one with more experience of bilingualism. I've grown a lot tougher dealing with these things the last year or so

ks, that's a surprise and a disappointment, I thought thoe ideas died outoh about 30 years ago?? I guess I'm lucky in that I've never had any negative comments, but I mean, realistically, in our position anywy, what are you supposed to do? ds1 was 16 months or so when we moved here and ds 2 & 3 born here. Are we then supposed to refuse to send them to kg? Or at home switch to speaking German (incorrectly) there's just not always the choice. Now I understand what you meant by the therapist! I was wondering.

well, good luck. I agree with fn, speech therapy is also very common here, ds was picked up for not rolling his 'r's properly - but then were several swiss kids, not just him being foreigner. But then I'm not in any position to help him! Don't know how I'd feel if the therapist wasn't great, so in your shoes. Luckily ours is fab. Makes me realise how lucky the dc's are that the other language is English. Must be a nightmare for the other 'foreigners' who don't have this.

Well I'm a speech therapist and regulalry assess children's speech and language in two languages (English and Welsh) and sometimes even in French (which I speak also.)

Any salt who is discouraging about bilingualism is talking through her arse frankly. Bilingualism is the NORM! Those that can only speak one language are in the minority.

I don't do much work with phonological('pronunciation') issues as the probability of finding a real problem in this area is incredibly rare and I don't think that mass screening justifies the very low incidence of true phonological problems that you will find.

Furthermore,most doctors know eff all about SALT.Anyone who thinks we just bother ourselves with 'saying words properly' is stuck in oooh, about 1967.

HI

We're in Austria . ds aged 7 has st at school once a week, well he did last year , not sure if he's started again this year - for his rrrr's, pf, and other sounds.It's done in German.

I started taking ds aged 5 to a st in May of this year, and like you I was really nervous about it as I assumed she'd do it in German but she said as his main language is English that's what she'll work in. She 1st assessed him in German by showing tons of pictures and asking what they were in german, if he didn't know the word, he just had to copy her. Then she used the assessment to find out which sounds he needs to work on. Unfortunately there are quite a few!!She's very good, we pay 20? per 30 minute session, then we claim back 75%ish fromthe health service.

We are currently working on sch too, and trying to get ds to see the difference between sch and s words eg see, she, sue, shoe, sign, shine etc...

Good luck

Deb

moondog - slightly off topic - at what age should a lisp be treated?

Anna - I'm interested in what you said about trilingualism (dd is trilingual). Do you have any references for me to follow this up?
Thanks

Joppe - the book I recommended to Pitchonette, Le Défi des Enfants Bilingues, by Barbara Abdelilah-Bauer, is very good on this.

What languages does your child speak and in what context? How old is your daughter?

Sorry to be so dismissive, but why not ask the doc to see if he can pronounce fifth, sixth and seventh, then prompt your dd to say schweine schwere schulstunden.

Thanks Anna - I'll have a look at it. She speaks two 'Indo-European' languages (is this term still used?), and one which has a completely different grammatical structure. That is her weakest language and her knowledge of it is getting more and more passive.

moondog
That is interesting, will definately find out how much bilingual experience the speech therapist has. I realise that my paediatrician is not very clued up on bilingualism, he told me not to bother looking for someone to teach our DCs French as they won't manage to learn another language unless they move to the country.

We might be moving to Switzerland next year and I would like them to speak some French before we go, he told me that DD will be too old to learn to speak French fluently by then (she will be 6yo in April)

My DD's kindergarten teacher said this morning that she is quite surprised that we have been sent to ST as she doesn't think that DD's speech is so bad. Will be interesting to hear what the ST thinks.

Thanks to all for the interesting posts.

Joppe - I know a family (living in Germany) that speaks French, German and Farsi and the Farsi is definitely hard for them to keep up because it isn't taught at school, even though it's the mother's mother-tongue, she is a SAHM and speaks it with the children (all six of them ).

Anna - yes, I know language education at school makes it much easier to maintain and develop a language, but that's a big problem here in London. Multi-lingual or bi-lingual schools seem to be virtually non-existent and in monolingual schools children are lucky if they are offered French classes at primary level (hardly any choice of languages - French is not one of dd's).

Sorry for the hijack kindersurprise!

Joppe - yes, I know that in many ways I'm better off sending my daughter to school here in Paris (despite the very rigid and conservative French NC) because she gets bilingual education from age 3 and a third language at 8. Not sure where you can find that in the UK (though English prep schools are much more fun for the children IMO).

Anyway, good luck.

An update after the first session with the speech therapist.

I asked whether she has experience with bilingual children, specifically with English/German. She said that she has seen a lot of bilingual children but she is obviously not capable of offering therapy in English.

I will pay attention to DD's speech in the next couple of weeks to see how she is in English. The ST cannot test her speech in English, so if there is a problem I might have to look for someone who can do English therapy as well.

She tested DD and it is only the sch that she has problems with and she can say sch in the middle or end of the word.

I have now got the feeling that the paediatrician was a bit quick off the mark and that it might not actually be necessary. It seems to be quite an industry at the moment, sending the children to logopedie, ergotherapie, physio... Thank God I only work parttime, I would never manage otherwise with all these appointments.

lol, she noticed that I roll my rrrs a lot and asked about that. I am from Scotland and we lived in Franken for 10 years so no wonder I roll my rrrs

dd went for a bit when she was 5. Looking back on it, she didn't mind going, the therapist was nice and it was all fairly playful but I think it was probably unnecessary in her case. It was the sch thing the ped picked up on too. I think it resolved itself. We stopped after about 5 months I think because of time constraints, we went twice a week.

There were mostly dc from foreign backgrounds that I saw there - a lot of Turkish or Arabic dc or half-German half something else.

Found quite a few speech therapists here who offer therapy in English and German. One who trained in the US but it would have meant a wait and so I took one close to where we live who was recommended to us. I think any problems she may have had would have righted themselves with time really.

Kinder,frankly, it doesn't sound as if there is a problem at all.

Anna,'incorrect' patterns of speech are considerd normal at different ages (eg 'lisps' saying 'f' for 'th' and 'w' for 'r' and so on). Any salt has access to info which will tell you at what age such phonological processes are considered abnormal (prob. around the 6/7 yrs age range)

But..I can't think that a 'lisp' (an inter dental fricative if you want to get fancy) would ever need to be treated. You just need the child to understand that the tongue needs to be placed on the alveolar ridge (hard bit of gum behind teeth) instead of on the teeth themselves.
If a salt was sufficiently motivared to work on this (and I wouldn't be) she would look first at child's auditory discrimination skills (ie can she hear and identify the difference between 'th' and 's') then at production skills,first working on target sound in isolation then in word initial, medial and final positions then finally in connected speech.

A mum could sort it out in 10 minutes though.

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