Learning a new language and stammers.

[sashangel]

I am not sure if I am putting this in the correct place.

My daughter has just turned 5 and started school in September. She is doing really well in class and is way above where she "should" be. She brought a letter home today about starting learning either/both French and Spanish after school with a company called Lingotots starting in January. I need to have the form and money in by Friday morning (talk about not giving much time. From what I can understand it is singing, rhymes, learning words for certain items and simple sentences etc.

I was very for this (even though it will cost), however, I am now thinking about it more about it. My daughter has had a stammer since she could talk. She is under a speech therapist since she was 2 and was doing really well until she started school (new people, places and emotions make frequency and severity spike). After a few weeks it settled down quite a bit but as she is now VERY excited about Christmas (I need to peel her from the ceiling at least 3 times a day) it has gone up ten notches. When things calm down we will have to work on it in a more focused manner to get it back to were it was.

I understand the benefits of learning another language and she will be doing one from year 3 (hopefully it will be more under control by then). However, I am worried about what this will do to her stammer. Has anyone else been through this either with a young child or older? How have you coped?

I will be trying to get hold of her speech therapist tomorrow for her opinion however more opinions from people who have been through it would be great.

Thanks

Hi sashangel

I'm just a Mum and my DD1 doesn't have a stammer, but struggles to say the letter 'R' correctly.

My gut feeling is a stammer or speech impediment will be there whatever the language.

My DD1 absolutely adores her after school french club - and I think it is entirely down to the personality of the very lovable french teacher she has. There's songs, puppets, colouring, work sheets, end of term parties, etc... and even though DD1 says fwancais, the teacher keeps encouraging her and smiling all the way through.

DD1 will have to take French from Y7 (she's Y6 right now) so we just felt it was best to give her a bit of a head start.

So my advice is have a try. Try it out for a term (I presume that's all you are paying for now) - if she enjoys it great. If not, well you gave it a try.

HTH