Speech delay - Bilingual toodler (boy) 2 years and 30 months

[sapo2000]

Hi there,

I am very concerned about my son's speech delay (2 years, 30 months). He reached all his milestones so far expect the speech. Well... more or less. Until he was 1 year old we lived in my home country (EU Country) and he was repeating words as a toddler his age would. After he completed 1 year old, we move to the UK because my husband is English and got a job here and, from that moment on, he began begin more exposed to English. Now, at 2 years and 30 months, he refuses to repeat words or even to use those words he already knows. For those with bilingual children, how was your experience. Many thanks in advance. (of course, family members are pressing a lot to have him checked).

It is absolutely normal for bilingual kids to talk later.
DH talks Swedish to the kids, I talk French and we have lived in several countries meaning the kids had to learn an additional language.

It doesn't matter if the household has a language and the school/community has another. Persevere in your language. Ideally it is one parent- one language .
Language comes through several means, face to face you talking to him, books and play groups are to be preferred to screen based languages.

Instead of asking him to repeat words as if he was a parrot, ask open questions " do you want an apple or a pear" , do you want to play with dinosaurs or cars.

Ignore his lack of speech as he might pick on that, just talk to him. " grab your shoes , let's go on the slide, ....

Understand how speech is built, what hinders it, and so on, but at the same time, mention it to the GP the next time you go, as you want to rule out hearing issues.

Thank you for your feedback :-)

I teach in a school nursery/ Reception class where most of the children have English as a second language. The nursery children - aged 3 - don’t speak very much compared to their English counterparts. Does your child attend a nursery?

Yes, he does! First he attended a nursery in my home country and, when we moved here, he started attending nursery here 2-3 days a week. thank you.