2.5 year old bilingual daughter - understands everything, speaks hardly at all... advice?

[tichey]

Hello,

I have been reading some of the general posts on speech delay and some people suggested I should post here as you all have great advice.

My daughter is nearly 2.5 years old. She is being brought up in a bilingual household and has a speech delay.

She has been assessed by two speech therapists - one privately in December and again on the NHS this week. Both have confirmed that her understanding in english (her second language) is beyond what they would expect for her age and I would say that her french understanding is even better as that is her first language. However her receptive language is far behind her peers.

Until about one month ago, she only had about 10 words (all french). Over the last month, she has gone up to about 30 words (nearly all french) but they are all one syllabal words. Over the last few weeks, she has begun to say the first syallabal of lots of words, but won't complete a word and won't say more than one word at a time. She also cannot say certain letters / sounds at all i.e. l, v and f.

She walked at 12 months, but only crawled when she was two. She is not physically confident (cannot jump or climb up play equipment easily on her own) but has very good fine motor skills and in all other respects seems absolutely fine.

Both speech therapists have said that she has an expressive speech delay but cannot say the cause of this. Do any of you recognise these characteristics? Should we be worried or is she just taking longer to speak because her focus has been so much on the understanding up until now?

I am worried that maybe she may have a speech disorder such as dyspraxia, although I know it is a bit too early to diagnose this..

Grateful for any advice...

thank you

I know it has been a long time, but I stumbled onto your thread when googling my toddler's speech patterns. He is 2.5, trilingual, and speaking (or not speaking) exactly like your daughter: he says only the first syllable of words, choose the easiest language, etc… also loves puzzles, has good concentration, makes himself understood with gestures, sounds, etc… I really felt like I was reading about my own son when I read your descriptions of your daughter.
How did your daughter's language develop in the end?
Thanks very much for taking the time to respond, if you are still around!

I'd be interested in an update from tichey too. Both mine are bilingual and DD1 in particular had fairly extreme language delay. Typical story for a bilingual: she understood everything, said very little (at 4 she was still on 3-word sentences at most). Then one day she started speaking completely fluently in both languages and now at 17 she has native-level competence in each of them.

slpfsr, children are ruthlessly pragmatic about communication. They don't learn a language because they want to travel or get better marks at school - they do it because it gets them understood and their immediate needs met. So if they know you speak both languages, they'll of course choose to say a word in the language they think of first. I'm afraid the only solution is persistence (keep going with the three languages) and consistency (keep to the same rules about which adult speaks what and when), and at some point he'll get it. It can just be a frustrating couple of years until that point. 2.5 is still very young!

There's a good bilingual/multilingual Facebook group I go to every so often, but it's invitation only. Called something obvious like Bilingual and Multilingual Families I think.

Thanks Arch! Helpful and reassuring.

Is she making herself understood?

A friend's child wasn't speaking at all but could make himself understood eg banging the TV screen if he wanted it switched on.

The speech therapist suggested learning a couple of signs for things like 'drink' and 'toilet' and not letting him have a drink unless he asked, not leaving him to die of thirst - sorry when I typed that it sounded cruel - more a case of 'I know you have your sippy cup and you are pointing at the fridge but you have to ask' sort of thing.

He soon decided it was easier to ask in English and within a couple of weeks he was talking.

I would just add to what Archfarchnad that while children are ruthlessly pragmatic their pragmatism can take different forms and what seems pragmatism to us may be less pragmatic to them or vice versa.

I have always spoken both languages to mine and they are fully bilingual (one adult, one mid-teen).Partly no doubt because of summer holidays where there were stricter adults and monolingual children around, but partly I think because I was able to sell the other language as fun: books, films, jokes, songs that they had special access to. So their pragmatism might have been less "I won't get taken to the toilet if I don't speak mummy's language" but "I won't get to hear my favourite story or play our special game".

As a teen my youngest finds a definite advantage in having a shared mutual language which means passing strangers may fail to stop what a complete idiot his mother is. My eldest, I think, thinks of our shared language as a "safe place" which she can retreat to when overwhelmed by her surroundings.

Incidentally, mine spoke at quite an early age and very fluently, but then they were both slow walkers (disability-related) so perhaps they had more time to concentrate. They didn't mix languages much in mid-sentence, but our household has always been a bit of a linguistic free-for-all where any member can code switch several times during a conversation.

Hey it’s been a while this thread was opened but going through the exact same thing:
we’re French leaving in the UK and my 2.5yo boy doesn’t speak. He was a late walker (20m) and is a very cautious little boy (climbs and runs but never too fast!)
‘he says about 30/40 words mostly in English but understands both languages easily. We’re exclusively speaking French to him at home and English at nursery + everywhere else.
I’d love an update from any parent that commented here: what happened to your kids? Did the speech therapy help? Are they now talking without difficulty ?

I do realise that OP posted in 2009 (close to the year of my baccalauréat 😂) so her child is now an adult haha but still would very much appreciate any update or advice. Many thanks!