Bilingual children = late talkers?

[Homsa]

My DS is 20 months old and has yet to say his first word, and it's starting to worry me a bit! We're bringing him up bilingually with English and German (one parent - one language), and he goes to an English-speaking nursery in the mornings. His understanding is quite good (at least in German), he babbles a lot and communicates well with gestures and grunts. He's due to have a hearing test in a few days' time, but I'm pretty sure his hearing is fine.
Does anyone have experience with speech delay in bilingual children?

yes - I'm having trouble remembering the exact ages, but dd certainly said nothing (except mama and dada and the odd we-weren't-quite-sure-if-it's-a-word) until later than 20 months.

All the books say that bilingual children are likley to be late talkers and dd is still slightly behind other mumsnetters' children of similar age (I think! Maybe they're all making it up...). She's nearly 3 and only just doing proper sentences, although she's very good at commands in Spanish!

I've read that too, but the book said that the gap between monolingual and bilingual children was actually smaller than that between boys and girls! I think that observation was based on just a handful of cases, though, so probably isn't representative.

I'm finding it a bit hard to stay relaxed about it all as I keep getting unhelpful comments like "maybe you should stick to one language, it's too confusing for him"! Grrr

My kids are brought up as bilingual... they both spoke very early but to be honest it's more down to personality than ability.
I would not worry at all at 20 months. I know 2 yo (unilingual) who barely speak!

Homsa, do not listen to people who say stick to one language! This is a fantastic opportunity, one I really wish I'd had. My DS has been brought up tri-lingual (one parent-one language plus the language in the country in which we live)He is almost five and can chat away in all 3 languages no problem. When he started at nursery apparently he didn't say anything at all for some time but once he started he was on par with all the other kids his age, he was 2.5 (this was a language we never spoke at home - Danish) Shortly after this we moved to Italy and he was put into main stream school at 3.5 and now is fluent (which is more than can be said for me) but no longer speaks any Danish because neither DH or I do. I really wouldn't worry that at only 20 months your DS is not talking coherently, it's still very young and every child reaches their milestones at different times. I heard a story about a child (monolingual) who didn't speak until he was 5, at which point he said 'Mummy, when I grow up I want to be an astronaut!' Some kids won't say a word until they know they are fully understandable.

Its not late even for monolingual children to be start speaking so don't worry at all!

I did a dissertation on bilingualism and the research i read, and the studies i carried out agree that there tends to be a delay in bilingual children actually starting to use the words, even though they have all the understanding in their heads. And this is understandable because they are remembering double, and trying to figure out which to use when ifykwim.
This does not affect them negatively in anyway.

In fact its an enormous advantage to most children to be brought up bilingually, as it "widens" their thinking abilities, and can make mathematics and logical thinking a lot easier to learn as their brain has this wider capacity to think.

I hope you understand that, i havn't explained it very well!

I totally agree about the increased abilities, I see it in DS (5).... he thinks in 2 languages.

My friend emigrated to Argentina with 3 under 5s. The youngest was v.slow to talk but would do whatever was asked in English or Spanish. She is now fluent in both but by far the most native sounding Spanish speaker. Her parents spoke English at home & Spanish outside. Once she went to a nursery she found her voice v.quickly.

Thanks for your messages, that's very reassuring. Love the story about the budding astronaut! I do hope we won't have to wait 5 years though!
Albert, trilingual, wow! We did consider that too (DH is Finnish, I'm German and we live in the UK), but we figured that it would make communcation too difficult as we don't really speak each other's languages (we always use English). But I guess a few Finnish songs and nursery rhymes wouldn't hurt, just in case DS wants to learn the language later. When I was learning Spanish, there was a guy in my class who had spent the first 2 years of his life in Mexico, and although he couldn't remember a single word of Spanish, his accent was perfect and he had a fantastic feel for the language, so something must have stuck!
Anyway, DS will have his hearing tested on Wednesday, and if that turns out to be fine, then I'll stop worrying about it!

I have two brothers and a sister and we all speak at least three languages fluently. I started speaking before 12 months and my sister too my brothers were slower and one had not even stated speaking at two. Most people I grew up with are bilingual and all started speaking at varying ages. I don't think being bi-lingual has much baring on when children start speaking.

Yes
definitely late talkers, about 3 months behind I would say

but do any of you find they get infuriated if the non bilingual parent speaks the other language to them? My ds1, 3.10yrs won't let me speak a word of Chinese, probably because I sound as bad as Dick Van Dyke doing cockerney in Mary Poppins

dd is bilingual but no delay whatsoever for her, in fact quite the contrary. Also has always had a good vocab.
I think it just varies from child to child. In fact it annoys me that everybody seems to assume speech delays are inevitable when children are beign brought up bilingual.
I'm sure your ds will be fine Homsa, he sounds like he's absorbing a lot of info at the moment.

I know what you mean Frenchgirl about people's assumptions which are so annoying!!! My daughter's 8 months old and people, who obviously "know-it-all", assume and tell me that she won't say anything for ages. It might be true but how can they be sure? It's just a stupid generalisation. And if it is the case, when she does, she'll have twice as much vocab as unilingual children.
Even if a bilingual child doesn't speak for ages, his brain will still contain more grey matter than other children. It's proven!

Homsa
stop worrying... I nearly drove myselv nuts because dd (3yo), brought up bilingual German/English, was lagging so far behind my neighbour's dd who's 3 months younger but unilingual and who was talking intelligibly a long time before my dd was making any sense.

Now that dd has started nursery a couple of months ago she suddenly is coming home and not shutting up . She mainly speaks English though as I'm the only German influence and as I went back to work when she was 5 months old she was mainly exposed to English at the childminders and dh and I speak English to each other as well. But she does and has for ages understand everything I say to her in German... if she chooses to

People who categorically say that multilangual kids are slower in speaking should be shot. Well maybe most of them are, but so what... at least then they speak more than one language and if dd is anything to go by are much more open to learning other things more easily.

HTH

Another one here raising a child with three languages, he is 25m and uderstands perfectly if you talk to him in English, Catalan or Spanish. What we have found difficult is what is he's trying to say. I supose if he was only speaking in just one language it would be a lot easier to understand what he is trying to say. But he is fine, it will take slightly longer for him to speak properly but I guess having the extra languages are well worth it.

have to second Chandra on the 'not quite sure what they're saying' side... dd started off with English 'baby talk' which for me (native German) made even less sense than baby talk usually does. But I'm learning It totally throws me then when dd suddenly comes out with the German word for something but that's a sign that it's all stored somewhere in her little brain, she just can't be bothered as mama does speak English as well. I say this because when my father was visiting, she was happily talking some sort of German to him! COW!

Yep and some mixig up ends happening as DS reuesting to see the moona or muna (Moon/Luna/Lluna)

I just love hearing stories about kids who started talking really late, it's so reassuring!
I suppose my main worry is that, in the unlikely event that DS did turn out to have some kind of a speech problem, his difficulties would probably be exacerbated by having to cope with two languages. But I guess that's a risk I'll have to take, as in all likelyhood he'll be fine, and I might terribly regret it later if I dropped German now. I agree that being a late talker is probably due to a combination of factors - genes (my brother was a very late talker too), two languages, and being a boy!
MrsBigD, this will sound really naive but I hadn't even considered the fact that DS's babbling to me could be an attempt at English - I had automatically assumed that he would babble in German to me! Still, I can't make head or of what he's saying - recently he's been shouting "asta!" and "ce soir" at me at the top of his voice ... what????

Dd 2.3 is bilingual (German/English) and it´s really only in the last month that her language has really come on in leaps and bounds. It was clear she was understanding both languages really well, but I did begin getting a bit stressed out when she turned 2 and wasn´t saying much, but the improvement in the last few weeks has been amazing.

Homsa... is he watching cbeebies or was it NickJr by any chance? there's a programme where one of the doll characters speaks French dd is quick on picking such phrases up as well. Like with watching Dora the Explorer I get 'largo' and 'corto' (apologies for the spelling that's what it soudns like anyhow)

For the babbling... my friends son, purely German speaking, for the first 3 years I couldn't understand a word he was saying! 'Gauku' was his word for 'Auto'. My dd for ages called spiders 'saba' no idea where she got that from. Even asked my childminer whether that's anywhere close to Pakinstani dialect spoken in the house but that was a negatory.

For your ds possibly babbling in English... that depends on what his major influence is. As I said dd was exposed to mainly English from 5 months on so English is definitely her first language. However I met a Spanish lady in Kew Gardens a while back and her dd had been with her the first 3 years so first language at that point was Spanish.

As for speech impediments and multilingual. IMHO if a babe has speech problems it's usually not down to which language he speaks but to other factors, like hearing etc. (not that I really know anything about this but I'm guessing)

He might just be plain lazy like the budding astronaut in this thread.

My brother (he's a psychologist) told me a joke when I worried about dd being slow with her speech... here we go... need to translate and shorten it a bit...

Little Hans's mother was terribly worried because despite of all her coaxing, prompting, efforts etc. Hans hadn't uttered a word in all his life and with his 6th birthday approaching she was giving up hope. until suddenly one day Hans said in perfect tones 'Mum, the soup is cold'. She nearly fainted and then jumped up and down in joy. Once she calmed down she asked Hans why he never said anything before. And what did Hans reply?.... 'well everything was fine so far'

uppps that post got a bit long... sorry!

Somebody here mentioned some months ago about a girl learning to speak welsh faster than English even when the English speaking mother spent more time with her than her Welsh speaking father, apparently the reason was that the mother was able to understand she wanted milk by just screaming and signaling the fridge, with the father... she needed to say the word in order to be understood

LOL at the joke, MrsBigD! I'm sure DS would have plenty to complain about MY cooking though!
I will have to ask at nursery if they've let him watch any of those programmes you mentioned. Well, at least "ce soir" is a bit nicer than "murder", which he seemed to be shouting at me a little while a ago ... snort ...
I think his language input is fairly evenly split between English and German, although maybe his time with German is a bit more intense as I probably speak to him more than they are able to a nursery.
Still can't rule out a hearing problem completely, as DS got bored half-way through his hearing test, but what they were able to test was all fine.
I'm just thinking that, if he had verbal dyspraxia, for example, and was struggling to distinguish and reproduce sounds, having to learn a wider range of sounds than monolingual children would probably make things even more difficult for him? And would he then need speech therapy in two languages? Arghh, I should really stop stressing about that!!!

yes you should stop stressing about it Homsa
Only 2 months ago I asked my father, who's an opera singer and speech specialist, what I could do to help dd to pronounce better, you know games, exercises etc. - her pronounciation of things was awful... Cinderella and Umbrella were undistinguishable!

My father's reply.... wait and be patient!

And he was so right. DD now hardly ever shuts up and I can actually understand her though in German she only mimicks what I say as opposed to actively using it. Though what comes out sounds perfect.

Our kids are bilingual. Never noticed any delay in language from this. 20 months is still little - hope you get the answers you need - hopefully all is ok - sounds like he's even been picking up some french

Just noticed this thread but wanted to speak from experience. We are English, both parents and speak English at home. Living in small country in Central Europe Kids started learning 2nd language since nursery which is a local dialect and this is what everyone speaks but now in Primary they are learning through German (language #3). Many foreigners living here worry soo much and a lot of families are duel nationality so kids also speak two langauges at home. OK some kids speak later than others but unless there are some serious learning problems most kids speak four languages by aged 10. it is natural for them. Ask my kids and they accept it as the norm and I think it is marvellous. I wish I could have had that chance. My kids don't have the benefit of any help from me and they are fine. OK they speak English with a German accent but who cares. If you have the opportunity to let your kids be bilingual don't miss it start as early as possible.