Comments on: Ask an Expert: Does my Son Have a Speech Delay Because He’s Bilingual?

By: LIR

LIR — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:19:31 +0000

Hi Kat,
Thank you for sahring your story

I am also a mom of a bilingual boy (He just turned 3 last week). We speak spanish at home but he is full time in a daycare/preschool only english. By 2 he was quite delayed with only 10-15 words (some in english some in spanish) at 2.2 he started speech terapy once a week (in english) . I wasn’t concerned at all but like in your case we had been told by “well wishers” that our son was delayed. at 2.6 he started to put 2 words together (in english) but since there his vocabulary just exploded!!!!!! Now he talks in 3-4 word sentences and he started to talk also in Spanish (2 word sentence in Spanish). My son only had speech terapy for 6 months.

Good luck to all the moms that are raising bilingual kids!!!!!!!

By: BethO

BethO — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:11:06 +0000

Thank you for letting us know how your Ryan is doing! I only came into my nephews’ life 4 years ago and the situation was already made. I wish they had gotten a hearing test and the loving attention when they were younger like you have done with your son. It’s so good to know he’s doing well!

By: Kat Gritt

Kat Gritt — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:31:20 +0000

I greatly appologize for my spelling mistakes, for some reason my keyboard keeps typing other letters instead of the correct ones, or maybe it’s just because i’m in a hurry, my fingers slip onto next buttons… most probably, that’s the case anyway. ))

By: Kat Gritt

Kat Gritt — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:27:52 +0000

Hello everyone! Just to let you know, we had ryan’s hearing checked and it turned out to be absolutely normal, even almost ideal. We also had a DNA testing for speech delay related illnesses, such as hereditary X-chromosome etc, and were told the tests were absolutely fine, and there were no reason why Ryan would be speech delayed. than in December 2009 withing a week’s time he just exploded with speech improvement, and learned about 5-6- words a day. he’s learned how to connect them correctly into sentences and how to use the correct artisles in front of them. he is absolutely normal now, talks non-stop, we have chosen an English language as a primary one, and will start Russian language education at the age of 4, as we were consulted by two different speech therapists both from Qatar and Russia. as I understand at this point, not every child has an zbility to easily pick up two or three languages at the same time, and some need assistance, In our case it obviously waorked when my son learned English first, and now he is slowly starting to learn Russian and even Czech language from the playground in Prague where we are at the moment. believe me, it was a heartbreak for me not be able to speak to my son in my own language for 3 months, but it obviously worked, and now he is not confused at all and willingly learning Russian words also. The amazing thing is that his diction in both languages is so good now, ahen before it was mostly mumble and nothing else. I personally thank Marina Villatoro, who has greatly supported me in her e-mails, and hope that no mum ever gives up on her child, and will believe into her child’s ability no matter what the doctor’s say, just like Marina did. I think first of all, we are the only people whom the child can trust fully and who have to believe in them also.There may be thousands of speech therapists and lots of doctors, but without a mother’s love it all would be effortless. Wishing all of mothers patience and than you will see the magic your love will do! Take care!

By: BethO

BethO — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:54:32 +0000

I guess what I’m saying is, if they seem to understand but don’t talk, or don’t pronounce things normally even after they’ve been talking a while, get the hearing checked. If it’s normal, relax. Kids do their thing when they do it. But do get it checked.

By: BethO

BethO — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:47:45 +0000

I would like to say we should not jump to a conclusion that being bilingual or trilingual is the reason for a speech delay. The science is not there. Every family including monolingual families has a kid who was slow to talk, and maybe it is a not a problem, but sometimes it is.
We have bilingual nephews whose mom thought they were just taking their time to talk, and their pediatrician even agreed. It turns out both of them have a hearing problem and they now wear hearing aids. If they had received speech therapy when they were younger they probably would have been able to learn to talk normally. Don’t wait to get a child’s hearing checked, if there is any sign at all that might be an issue, and any type of speech delay is a sign. There are tests available for children any size, even infants.
Many people with hearing issues can hear sounds, even quiet sounds, but they may not get ALL sounds, to be able to really hear speech well.
My son at age 22 months could hear very quiet sounds, such as the cat jumping down from the sofa way on the other end of the house. Yet he had a very limited vocabulary and didn’t say the “s” sounds in any of his words, and almost none of his words really normally. I took him to an audiologist and found out he did show a mild hearing deficit in a certain frequency.

Right now his speech development is “low normal” so we are just watching to see if his language skills improve much in the next few months, but if not, he will get speech therapy .

By: LIR

LIR — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:28:27 +0000

Hi all,
The last post is from last year (August 2009). I was wondering how the kids are doing. Are they talking now more? I am a mom of an almost 3yr. old (raised in an spanis/english environment) an he is also delayed in speech for his age.

Thanks in davance for your replies.

By: LIR

LIR — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:26:59 +0000

Hi all,
The las post is from last year (August 2009). I was wondering how the kids are doing. Are they talking now more? I am a mom of an almost 3yr. old (raised in an spanis/english environment) an he is also delayed in speech for his age.

Thanks in davance for your replies.

By: Kat Gritt

Kat Gritt — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:04:00 +0000

Marina, I am Russian too and my husband is English, we’ve been told by “well wishers” that our son is delayed in speech. We were offered by English relatives to drop Russian language to let our son speak quicklier in English. I am seeing a speech therapist for our nearly-3-y.o. son Ryan on Tuesday, but I don’t expect that doctor to say anything apart from “your son needs a therapy”, and his speech development is not normal.
I speak with Ryan in Russian, we speak with my husband in English, as he doesn’t know Russian, my husband speaks with Ryan in English. From 2 years of age Ryan became later in speech development than other kids. By that time he said only “mummy”, Daddy, car, ok, hello, and “daj” in Russian. He never waved “goodbye” to other kids, just looked at them silently when they were leaving. He started walking from 18 months, but he walked straight away and never fell, even now when he climbs up somewhere high, he carefully counts his own strengh and ability to either climb higher or jump off, and hardly ever gets any injuries. He is very well developed physically, he plays football, can hit a golf ball into a hole properly, can balance, eat with fork, spoon, and even cut food into smaller pieces with a plastic knife. He never had any problems in his nursery group, he defends smaller or weaker kids, shares toys, and is very caring with animals and plants. He can do most of the household things, like turn the light on and off, turn a top off a plastic bottle to get a drink, sort the shapes, colours, colour pistures with coloures suggested, open and close doors. Everybody thinks that Ryan is clever enough not to talk, because he can just come to a child and talk gybbrish to him or her, and make expressions on his face, and also use mimics and gestures, so eventually he gets exactly what he wanted, but we are very worried now about him not talking. Ryan can say few “ultimate” words which he uses all the time to get what he wants without further effort: “: “look”, “look over there”,”look at that” and points at the object, “oh-oh”, “ouch’” when it hurts,”wow’, “ok”, “mummy”, “daddy”, “hello”, waving “bye-bye” starting from half-year ago, says very clearly: “here you go”, “here you are”, “come”, “daj” in Russian, “na” in Russian. He is very interested in mechanisms, and is very inventious, but we are very concerned now whether we will have to wait a bit until he starts speaking by himself, or force him to speak by some special medicines, training, pretending that we don’t understand his mumbling, or whatever else… Please could you tell us if your son was developing in a similar way? If yes, it would give us a hope that he will talk normally by the age of 4, which is a school age in Britain.
Maybe Ryan is too clever, or lazy, or a complete retard, we don’t know anymore, and the more we read that late speech development can affect a child’s life, the more we are concerned about it. Everywhere we find only “facts” that bilingual invironment should not cause a speech delay…
Marina, waiting for your reply, and thanks
Katya

By: AnaGloria Rodriguez

AnaGloria Rodriguez — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:11:06 +0000

You’re right, Marina, we do need to stick together! And isn’t it wonderful we have Spanglishbaby to thank for connecting us!?
I think we’ll try Mandarin next, too.