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?

So glad to find a thread about this! We live in London and my husband is English, so we speak English as a family and I speak French to DS when I'm on my own with him or around French-speaking people. I find it difficult to speak French to him when we're with people who don't speak French though - it looks like I'm excluding them if they can't understand what I'm saying (feels particularly awkward with my in-laws for some reason ). DS was 18 months old on Thursday and, although he is very chatty and seems to understand a lot in both languages, his only "proper" words are "Gaggy" (for Daddy) and "Mam-mam" (for Mummy or Maman, not quite sure). So my in-laws are becoming quite worried and starting to suggest maybe 2 languages at the same time are too much for him, and why can't he learn French later on when he is 3 or 4... Having made the effort to speak French (10 years in London mean that I feel almost more comfortable in English than in French) to DS as much as I can, I felt a bit upset. And as a first-time parent you are never completely sure you're making the right choice, are you? My in-laws argue that the school system is so competitive these days that children's language skills really need to be up to scratch from the very start, and are worried that DS may not speak English properly by the time he goes to school.
I must say I haven't done much research about it. I've tried to find a book but they never seemed to describe quite the same situation. For me it seemed natural to bring up DS bilingually as my brother has done the same with his children - his wife is Italian and they live in Brussels; now the children are 10 and almost 5 and completely bilingual - switching effortlessly from one language to the other. I spoke to my mum this morning and she did say that they only started speaking around 2, so I shouldn't worry. I guess we should all heed MrsBigD's father's advice - and not just when language is concerned! Homsa, I will keep my fingers crossed for you though. Please let us know how things go next month.

We recently moved to Italy and since being her my childrenhave begun learning Italian. I thought my DS (3) would pick it ever so quickly given that he doesn't really speak English so well but he only SINGS in Italy. I undertsand its perfect accent and language as well. Otherwise he doesn't speak. Though recently he has been making up words and saying they are the Italian word and won't have the real word.

My DD (7) I thought would find it harder and she is translating for my son.

It funny how life surprises you.

themadBelgian, please don't stop speaking french to your little boy, explain to your in-laws that often bilingual children need a bit longer to assimilate all the different sounds they hear but that when he launches into speech he will catch up. I know it's hard to speak french to your child when around non french speakers, but if you can, just explain why you do it to them and get on with it (they will secretly admire you and envy your child ). I think as long he gets plenty of stimulation in both languages (stories, songs, TV/Dvds, play, etc) he will be fine. Bonne chance!!

themadBelgian, I find myself in almost exactly the same situation. I'm French and hubby's English and we both speak to our dd, 14m, in our own language, exclusively. Like you I feel strange talking to her in French among people who don't understand, it feels like alienating them from the 'conversation'. But unlike you I have the full support of my British in-laws, and they fully admit that it's a great luck to be raised bilingual. My dd doesn't say anything that we can identify as words yet, but is still very talkative, babbles all the time, and whatever she understands, she does in both languages. it's true that they say that bilingual babies speak later, but it's also true that they tend to perform better at school and find it MUCH easier than monolingual kids to learn a third, etc, language. Please, stick to your guns and don't give up talking your native language to your boy, he'll thank you for it one day .

My DS is 14m and has no words at all but makes lots of varied baby noises. I speak English and my (French) husband speaks French and we have done since he was born. What is funny is to hear my DS babbling "in French" - i.e. making noises which we don't have in English, like rolling rrs and jzh etc.

Why would you speak to your child in (what for you is) a foreign language?

Plenty of time for an 18m old to learn to speak before he starts school!

MadBelgian. I think your in-laws are wrong. Think of the advantage your ds will have, being able to speak another language fluently. Now is the time to teach him. He'll learn French perfectly now, and will learn to speak without a trace of an accent. If you wait, he'll find it harder to learn and may always have an English accent when he speaks French. I am not bilingual and I haven't tried to bring my dds up bilingually (I agree with what Jen28 says... it's really hard speaking to your kids in a foreign language, however familiar you are with it) but I have taught them bits and pieces of Italian. I notice now that if I ask my dds to repeat something, my dd2 who is 3 will repeat it perfectly, but dd1 who is 5 will repeat it with a strongly English pronunciation and will often 'mis-hear' things. Anyway, 18 months is quite early to be getting worried about the speech of even a monolingual child. Good luck.

Yes I'm sure of it ....My polish friend has a 3 year old who says very little. Has just started to communicate effectively very recently...and yet he is clearly a bright boy.

Meant to add - being a late talker is a small price to pay for the benefits of being bi-lingual

DS (2.8) can understand three languages without a problem although he seems a bit behind compared to children his age who only speak one. Though being fair to it, DS has three different words for each word other monolingual children have, so "behinD" may not be a fair word to describe his communication skills.

I do speak Spanish to DS all the time, I'm sure many people may feel a bit alienated, but at the moment I am trying to "save" his Spanish. He will learn to speak properly in English, he is surounded by English speakers. But if we stopped talking to him in Spanish (or Catalan) it would be difficult to convince him to speak to us in our respective languages again, especially if we all get used to speak English between us all the time.

Homsa, good to hear your update. Did the people from the Child Development Centre actually disuade you from talking to your son in two languages? Did they feel that two languages were too difficult for you son to cope with? Given that the diagnosis was as you say 'inconclusive' I wonder how they can justify that? My currently 22 month bilingual son still says NO proper words at all yet (other than dada and mama) although I know he understands almost everything in both English and German. I understand your position and I don't want to undermine your approach of only using one language for the time being, but I am genuinely very interested in the subject. And of course I am keepinig my fingers crossed that all will turn out well for your son and you can go back to talking German to him!

Hiya Homsa, just wanted to say 'hello' from a fellow German-English parent with a SN child. My kids are 6, 4 and 2.

My 4 year old daughter has Down's syndrome and considerable hearing loss - her speech is severely delayed, she says a few single words and that's it, other than that she uses Makaton extensively. I still persevere with the German with her though for non-educational stuff (I try to do counting etc in English to fit in with school). I guess going monolingual is easier if you've just got the one child, it wasn't practical in our case as the other two cope fine with being bilingual. We've had several SALTs since our dd2 was born, and only the latest one really has a bee in her bonnet about the bilingualism, the others have all said that it won't be a problem.
It's still early days - hopefully you will be able to go back to using more German with your little boy once hes caught up a bit - but I just wanted to give you a bit of encouragement that SN does not have to mean monolingualism. There are so many places in the world where several languages are spoken as a matter of course, and children with SN learn to talk just as they would in a monolingual environment, but I appreciate it is daunting, and as I said, I'm not sure how things would have turned out if dd2 was our only child.
As it is, she understands both English and German equally (and quite well, too). Can't say much about her speech - but then that has been messed up by her hearing loss, really.

Hi geekgrrl, thank you for your encouraging words. I was very interested to hear about your situation, you don't come across bilingual families with SN children very often! Yeah, it is different if the SN child is the first one, for us switching to monolingualism was easy and seemed to be the safer bet, but like you say bilingualism is the norm in many parts of the world and there are SN children there too! Shame there seems to be so little research into this issue.

Annasmami, we've had some conflicting advice - the SALT we saw for a one-off assessment said to persevere with the German, but I'm not sure if she wasn't just trying to be PC and towing some government line about supporting families from ethnic minorities, IYSWIM. The paediatrician at the CDC was loathe to give a clear opinion, but seemed to think that monolingualism was the "lower-risk" option.

I think if it's only the child's speech that is delayed (like it seems to be the case of your daughter) they wouldn't advise you to stick to one language, but since DS is delayed in other areas as well, that's a bit different. We've got an appointment with another SALT (due to having moved to another city) on Friday, I'm very curious to hear what she thinks. I really hope things will get moving now and we get some help, I feel we've been muddling through by ourselves for far too long... Like I recently enrolled DS at a nursery that I liked, but when I took him there for a settling-in session, the head told me afterwards that they wouldn't be able to have him as they weren't able to cater for "his level of need". Not what I expected at all, and I really don't think his behaviour was all that challenging, he's just an immature, boisterous, happy lad.

I started this thread almost one and a half years ago, and thought I'd let you know how the story ended - just in case anyone reads this thread who has the same worries as had. (...and also because I need some kind of closure I think)

Well, it turns out that our decision to switch from using two languages to just one was probably the right one - DS was finally diagnosed with autism last month. He is now 3.1 years old and has only recently started to say a few words. I reckon he's got just under 50 words now, and is even starting to combine some them. I'm incredibly relieved about this - sadly, some autistic children never learn to speak at all.

However, I am now acutely aware that language delay is often the first sign that there is something wrong, and should be taken very seriously indeed. The bilingual thing was really a red herring, and I'm so glad we didn't listen to all those people who kept saying that "he's late because you speak two languages at home".

Homsa thank you for your update. Its very interesting your comments because this what is taught to all nursery staff. Did he display autistic symptoms?

Homsa, thank you for your update. It must be a relief for you that your son is now correctly diagnosed and you are able to support his (language) learning in the most appropriate way.

I think it definitely depends on the child's developemt and multilinguals speaking later is not a law set in stone.

From my experience, most bilingual children I've met recently are very chatty indeed and saying plenty by 18 months, mostly in their mums languages (french)

My daughter could say about 70-80 words when she was 18 months but most of them were replicates ie she can say nose and nariz, eye and ojo etc etc. She asks me for MAS food and her daddy for MORE, but she gets this wrong sometimes and will speak to me in english or to her dad in spanish. If she points at my ear and says ear I always repeat the word oreja instead.

She's always been vvery chatty, even when a baby she'd have conversations with herself. I think it's possible she'd be more competent if she was only learning one language, but the age they start talking is a bit like walking, depends on the child alone. Not saying much at 2 is as normal as being a chatterbox, so I wouldn't worry too much at all.

They all get there on their own time

MaryP0p1, yes he did have autistic symptoms, although it was hard to tell around age 1-2, when lots of toddlers have obsessions! DS had a gravel fixation, used to walk around with his hands full of stones for hours at a time. Also, he was very late to learn to point, and did not point to share interest, just to get you to give him things. He also used to point with the whole hand, not the index finger. His imitation skills were rather poor - I used to go to sing and sign classes with him and he did not sign back to me until after his second birthday. Then, however, the signing turned out to be extremely useful!

MatildeSometimes, of course all children develop at different rates, however you need to bear in mind that while around 5-10% of children can be classed as "late talkers" (i.e. are between 24 and 30 months and using fewer than 50 words and/or not yet combining words), autism spectrum disorders now affect about 1 in 100 children, and speech delay is often the first sign that something is wrong. These children do not get there in their own time, and early diagnosis and treatment is absolutely crucial. Given the state of the NHS and the fact that waiting lists for an initial assessment can stretch as long as 6 months or more, I would advise anybody who has concerns about their child's development to get them referred as soon as possible. You can always cancel the appointment if the child turns out to be just a late bloomer!

Homsa, that's an excellent point. If you have any concerns you should always check with a specialist.

Multilingual children
When my son announced that he (half-French) and his Japanese wife
were bringing up their daughter in French and Japanese, sticking to one parent for each language, I was concerned.
Although she spoke later than monolingual children, at the age of 5 she spoke both and now, aged 7 she also speaks English. What amazed me is that she does not confuse the languages. I bought her a German speaking dolls that says 90 sentences and my grand-daughter is keen to learn German and has started repeating what the doll says. She is very aware of various languages and countries.
I would say it has been a success.
When my son was young, I gave up on the French as I got frustrated by
His slow development in language !
The keyword is patience and perseverance. Do not listen to the people who make discouraging comments.

Hi Homsa,

Don't worry about this. It is completely normal that children raised bilingual start talking a bit later. I'm a former speech therapist and I'm currently conducting research on late talking children, so I know this from experience and from the literature :)

I hope this helped!

My children (2+5) are growing up bilingual German/ English (one parent, one language) too. Both were quite early speakers but the 2-year old was slower, less clear in his words. Had his ears tested mainly b/c of infections he used to have (I too thought he heard really well, as he would comment if someone moved upstairs/ if there wss a noise outside that wasn't that loud ) but he got those tubes in his ears about 6 months ago and not only did he improve healthwise but his speech just exploded.obviously he had good enough hearing that he could compensate alot but the blockage made words too fuzzy for him to pick up on differences. At least that is how I understand it.

But on the other hand I have friends with all-German children who said almost nothing at age 2 and are now nearly 3 and he can communicate but not in real sentences...another is 5 who was similar and he is absolutely fine now.what I am trying to say: I think this can vary considerably and I would get the check-ups but if all is fine try(I know that is easier said than done) and relax and give them the time they need ...

Can anyone recommend a good speech therapist for children in the Croydon area?

Homsa, I love how many people are encouraging you to continue raising your child bilingually. Speech delay is incredibly common and not at all caused by learning more than one language. In fact, being bilingual can be a real advantage. I made a super-short video on the topic with some information on recent research about bilingualism. ->
Bryony (Speech and Language Therapist)