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?

I think it is dependent on the environment. My ds's first languages are English and Spanish. English is spoken to him by dh and Spanish by me. As ds spends more time with me, he says more words in Spanish, however, in the last month, I have witnessed an explosion in his English verbal skills. Comprehension seems equal in both languages. Ds has just turned 2.

Ds does attend nursery, 5 mornings a week and so is exposed to English in this environement. However, I noticed today that the keyworkers were trying to talk to him in Spanish. I politely asked them to talk to him in English and explained the reasoning. They were trying to be helpful and seemed to not know enough about language immersion.

I am also an teacher and in my experience, when children have entered my class with none or limited English, they have picked up soooooooo much at the end of the year- especailly the younger children. It is nerve racking for parents (and I admit I worry about my ds even though I try and remind myself of my personal experiences in edcation) but as parents, our natural instinct is to worry and protect, isn't it.

The reasoning behind later verbal skills is of couse because the brain is processing a higher volume of information than monolinguals and our little babies should be applauded for being such clever young things. Remember that as soon as they are in full time education, the child has access to much more English (if in England, for example) and so it is really important to immerse our bilin/trilingaul kids with the addition language gift that we are trying to give them.

Comprenhension is, in my view alot more important in the early stages of language development as with this they can piece the complex language pieces together.

Shimmers

Sorry about the typos. It is 20 past midnight!!!!!!

I don't have personal experinece of this yet, my DS is only 10 months old and also being brought up bilingually. But most of the bilingual literature says that bilingual children tend to be late speakers and that there is nothing to worry about. 20 months doesn't sound that late to me. The other thing to take account of is that boys tend to speak later than girls.

My niece is half Japanese and she was a late talker. she always seemed to know who spoke what language though,. v. clever

Here is some support that bilingualism does not cause speech delay and a lot of reasons to continue with it:

www.bilingualoptions.com.au/speechpathBILING.htm

Also, there is a known link between high IQ and late talking - it is called the Einstein Syndrome after you know who. Wait and be patient sounds like good advice. You are developing a special part of the brain by exposing your child to more than one language. Unless there is a physical or developmental reason for speech delay, the child will get there just fine and never look back.

I am second generation chinese, so my chinese is pretty ropey as it is. (Speaking chinese with english accent according to my mum and sounding awful). How fluent do you think my toddler will be in chinese?

I thought I'd give an update on my DS 4 months on - he's just celebrated his second birthday and still hasn't got any words... We are now on the waiting list for speech therapy and for an assessment at the Child Development Centre, as he appears to have some autistic traits (although I don't really believe he could be autistic).

My DH has been getting ever more paranoid about the situation and had made me promise him that, if DS still had no words at 2 years old, I'd stop speaking German to him. We came back today from a lovely visit to the German grandparents and I tried speaking English to my DS for the first time. It's really getting me down, it felt so unnatural, and I'm not even convinced this is the right thing to do! Basically, I'm only doing it because I promised and because I can't take DH's nagging and accusations any more .

linabolton, I don't know how much input from other Chinese speakers your toddler has, but if she only hears Chinese from you, she will probably end up sounding like a miniature version of you! This happened to a friend of mine, she spoke English with a strong Spanish accent to her daugher. The daugther sounded exactly like her mother until she started school. Her English is impeccable now.

Homsa I really do not think your ds hearing german from you is the cause to the delay, and I think it's unreasonable to ask you to stop talking to your ds in german. I hope you get seen soon for speech therapy, but am afraid I have no experience of it, so not sure how hot they are on bilingualism. Haven't read the whole thread but have you done more research and reading on bilingualism?

No, I don't think hearing two languages is the cause of my DS's speech delay either, and to be honest, neither does my DH. His reasoning is that, IF the speech delay is due to an underlying problem, which of course we can't rule out, THEN the bilingualism could be making the condition worse. But then again, we don't really know how bilingualism affects children with speach and language disorders - there seems to be very little research on this (at least this is what Jen28's link suggested to me). My DH of course claims that it's only common sense that for these children one language is easier than two!

I'm really upset because I feel that talking English to my DS now is of dubious benefit, but it might determine the linguistic future of our family: if I miss this window of opportunity with DS, my chances of raising any other children we may have in the future are extremely slim!

Oops, I meant raising them WITH TWO LANGUAGES

homsa, sorry to hear about your linguistic problems. I know a Finnish German couple! but it is the other way round, she is Finnish, he is German. He taught their baby German by speaking it.

My children are multi lingual, from different people speaking different languages. My dd1 didnt say her first word until she was 18 months, and at 20 months, she only said Mummy, Daddy and the name of her baby brother.

English is so easy to pick up if you are in the UK, he will definitely speak it anyway!

Anyone know any good books on the subject of growing up bilingual?

Homsa - please do not give up your one-parent-one-language approach. I have seen many succesful cases, including our own two children (german and english). And while my daughter (now 3 years) started talking quite early (18-20 months), my currently 19 month old son is not talking at all. That suggests that boys may indeed be quite a bit slower to talk. While bilingual children may be a little later to talk, they appear to benefit acadamically from the knowledge of two languages right from birth. Keep up your approach and let us know how it goes.

Hi annasmami, I actually gave up speaking German to ds 2 months ago because I couldn't take the pressure from dh anymore. I still speak about half an hour of German to him every day, and I sing German songs and read German books occasionally. It's not ideal, but I really hope he will start speaking soon and then I'll switch back to German.

We've got an appointment at the Child Development Clinig in just over 2 weeks' time, and we'll see what they tell us there. If they don't think he's got a language disorder and have no objections to 2 languages, then I'll go back to German straight away. Fingers crossed.

BTW, ds is now 2.2 and has recently learned to say 4 words: mama, daddy, auto (yep! German!), and something that sounds like "hase" (for his cuddly toy). It's a start...

Hi Homsa, I can understand you well - it is a little unnatural to speak another language than one's mother tongue to ones children! Hopefully all is well developmentally with your son and you can go back to talking German with him! Let us know how it goes. I am very interested as my 19 month old (german/english) son is also not very verbal yet. But seeing my 3 year old daughter speak so well German and English makes me quite hopefull! Good Luck with your appointments.

Hi annasmami (and anyone else who's interested!), just wanted to give you an update. DS is now 2.5 yo and finally saying a few words - mama, daddy, hase, outside, other, bicycle, biscuit, and please. TBH, most of them sound kind of the same and nobody but us understands him. He seems to have problems with a large number of sounds, and still doesn't really imitate much at all.

The assessment at the Child Development Centre was inconclusive - they said he was very immature in lots of areas, including physical and cognitive, and that an autistic spectrum disorder was a possibility. We were, of course, completely gutted after being told this, but having read up on autism, and having observed DS's progress over the last few months, I'm getting more and more convinced that he's not autistic. But there is no denying that something is wrong, and it's not just speech. Due to having moved house recently, we had to go on another waiting list, but will get seen in December at the local Child Development Centre and by a SALT. In the meantime, we use lots of sign language with DS and have recently started PECS (a communication system based on pictures), both of which have made life a lot easier and DS much happier.

I now think we made the right decision when we stopped using 2 languages, and it's no longer that upsetting to me, as I'm far too worried about the big picture than to hanker after my dreams of having a bilingual family. Please keep your fingers crossed for us that DS is just a slow developer and will catch up eventually...

I was brought up bi-lingual and didn't say much until I was around 2. Even then, I mixed the languages quite a bit until I was 3 or 4.

I have noticed that my younger first cousins who were also brought up bilingual did the same thing. For a while, they seemed a bit confused by people who didn't understand both languages, but by 3.5 and up most could switch back and forth w/ease.

The Little Demon will be 2 in about 3 weeks, so far he says 'hello; dor; quai; no; digger; dada; boots; cat; oui; regard'. When I see other kiddies his age some of them are saying short sentences! He finds it incredibly frustrating, as do we! So it's nice to find a thread like this so we can reassure ourselves that he's normal for a bi-lingual!

gosh, thats impressive Rhubarb. My youngest, approx same age (in fact VERY close!) speaks only English up til now. Am waiting to find out how much French and German she understands.

But that's 3 languages Nightynight, mine only has French and English to cope with. What we tend to do is speak English at home, and at the creché he gets French, so he is able, I hope, to separate the two. I read that this is better for them.

I think the problem is that dd2 has rarely been in a totally french or german speaking environment.

Have any of your ds's physical milestones been delayed? e.g. sitting up, crawling, walking ...

Also, does your DH have a sound grasp of what is normal speech development for a 2-3 year old?

BTW, there are good books on speech delay and why if your gut tells you autism/asperger/pervasive developmental disorder is NOT the problem, you need to be v.careful of following the treatments proposed by the doctors. Personally, I like the books by Thomas Sowell as he has a son who was affected.

Also, Homsa, the part of the brain that gets specially developed from bilingualism continues to grow until the age of 6 - so if you go back to bilingualism before he is 6, you will still be giving him that advantage.

Physical milestones were normal, but he has mild hypotonia (sp? means he's a bit "floppy" and clumsy). His understanding is behind his peer group, as far as we can tell - you never really know with a child who doesn't talk, do you. But he does understand basic instructions and everyday words, that's for sure.

I did read "The Einstein Syndrome" and loved it, as it gave me lots of hope. DS fits lots of Sowell's criteria - except for one important one: he is abysmally bad at puzzles and spatial reasoning!

I really hope he will be okay in the end, and of course it would be lovely to go back to speaking German at some point. You are right, there is still plenty of time!