At my son’s preschool, they periodically do developmental screenings. I have never given much thought to these assessments since, having been a teacher for almost 20 years, I felt pretty confident that a learning disability or developmental delay would be obvious to me. Imagine my surprise when I learned that he had failed the speech and language screening. While discussing the evaluation with his teacher, I was shocked to learn that all of the children who spoke Spanish had failed.
Fortunately, I have a cousin in my family who is a speech pathologist and sought her advice and counsel on this matter. She encouraged me to have my son evaluated by a bilingual speech professional since his speech and language errors could be a result of his multilingualism (Spanish, English and German).
The director of the preschool was able to recommend resources and programs within my community where I could take my son for a more in-depth evaluation with a bilingual specialist. In my county there are regular developmental screenings provided free to the community. There are also referrals for follow-up care and therapy that is low cost or free.
I took my son to be screened and was happy to learn that his speech and language development are well within normal ranges for his age in both Spanish and English. In fact, the speech pathologist thought that it was wonderful that both my boys were multilingual and went on to tell me how beneficial bilingualism is to the cognitive development of a child. While I never wavered in my conviction to raise my children to speak Spanish, I was disheartened to find that his speaking of other languages resulted in his English skills being assessed as below average and deficient by a monolingual professional.
Actually, my son’s case is not all that uncommon. My March issue of California Educator magazine had an entire article on just this issue, Language disorder — or just learning a new language? In the article, Pamela Greenhalgh, a speech-language pathologist, pointed out that students learning English are often misdiagnosed with language disorders when really they are just in the process of acquiring a new language. Sometimes a misdiagnosis can even lead to students being incorrectly placed in special education classes.
When my son was initially diagnosed with having a speech disorder, I knew that a follow up evaluation by a bilingual specialist was essential for an accurate analysis of his linguistic abilities. Parents, teachers, doctors and developmental specialists need to be aware that second-language acquisition can lead to a misdiagnosis. If possible, have another evaluation done in both languages to determine whether follow-up therapy or interventions are necessary. Talk to your pediatrician, school district or county to find services that will help you. Until there is a greater understanding of bilingualism in this country, we must be advocates for our children to be sure that they are being accurately assessed on their abilities.
For families living in Orange County, California, I recommend the Family Support Network. They provide free comprehensive screenings for children 0-5 years.
{photo by woodleywonderworks}
This is something we are struggling with now. A French-English bilingual child growing up in an Anglophone country … a speech therapist who does not speak French … a cousin on the autism spectrum …. chaos ensues!
Thanks!
great article Susan, this is actually very common, thank you for explaining
Gracias
Thank you for sharing! Very interesting that he did so well once he was screened by a bilingual professional! I’m glad they bilingual professional reaffirmed how great it is that you are raising a multilingual child!
Thanks for your support.
We are facing the same problem now. My daughters preschool teacher recommended a speech pathologist assess her because some words in English are not properly pronounced. However, in French she can do her “throaty” “r”, her “nasaly” n and corrects my sisters when the count “weet” instead of “HUIT”. She’s only 3, and I do have some concerns over her not using fuller sentences and I’m wondering when should this be a “developmental” concern over a common language learning problem. She’s exposed to English and French on a daily basis and Spanish occasionally.
I had the same problem with my son’s school who is bilingual in English/Spanish.
A bilingual speech pathologist can really help with any concerns you may have.
And you have to remember that schools love to have this kids with “problems” because they get money from the School District …. My daughter doesn’t even speak Spanish… she understand everything but she always answer in English to me. I felt that she was being discriminated because “I speak Spanish”.
I’ve heard of that happening.
The same thing happened to me when I was a child. I was sent to a speech therapist because I had trouble with my alphabet. I would switch back and forth between the English and Spanish pronunciation in class. Fortunately the speech therapist that worked with me understood that it was not a disability but was because I was acquiring two languages and had not yet learned to “code switch.”
Great article! But what was the final result for your son ? Resolution? Did you provide the school with the results from the multilingual specialist? Or is he still considered below average in English and if so, what does that mean? Will he be put in a special class? I remember going through this as a child, but I also recall loving school and many telling my parents how smart I was, but those tests make you feel otherwise. Therefore, I want to be prepared if my daughter goes through it.
My brother, Juan, once flunked an English language proficiency test because he was shown images of the sun in the early morning hours and another in the evening hours and was asked to give a one word description for each of the images, he said “dawn” and “dusk” instead of “sunrise” and “sunset.” Instead of seeing that his English skills were so developed that he could recite the more unexpected synonyms for each word he was deemed language deficient. It shocks me to no end that skilled professionals are not able to see the bigger picture and think on their feet in this multicultural/multilingual word.