I am the only Spanish speaking parent, and English is spoken in the home. Her exposure to Spanish is limited, and I do what I can, but end up speaking in English to her.

I heard some of the theories that I might be approaching the point of no return at around 4 when she will no longer be able to acquire the language. True?

Veronica”

Dear Veronica,

Not true.  People of all ages acquire languages.  Exposure to the language is what is required.  The more Spanish your daughter hears, the more she will understand and use it.  I acquired Spanish at the age of 21.

There is research that suggests that people have a more difficult time acquiring the sounds of a language after a certain point.  People disagree on when that point is.  At 3, I think your daughter stands a great chance of acquiring both the sound system and the structure and vocabulary of Spanish.

¡Suerte!
Ellen Kester

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

Thank you,

Persis”

Dear Persis,

What you describe is very typical in bilingual development.  Research shows that children’s output is driven by their input.  Typically, if they hear one language more, they will use that language more.  We also know that children learn to understand before they speak, for the most part. It is a good sign that she appears to understand everything you say to her.

I haven’t met any 18-month-olds who can have “normal conversations” by my definition.  It is common that they have a set of words in one language and another set of words in their other language with a little bit of overlap. In fact, research shows that children her age who are raised in bilingual settings typically express 70% of their concepts in one language or the other and only 30% in both languages.

I encourage you to continue to use both languages with your daughter.  Before you know it, she will converse with you and your husband in English and Spanish.

Best,

Ellen Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

“My personal story is the following: our daughter, Sofia, is 33 months old and her use of “understandable” words is extremely limited – maybe a handful of words and no phrases. She does speak all day in her “own language” – blabbering and using intonation. She does understand some of what we say to her (acknowledging with a smile or a frown/cry or following a request), and she uses mainly her language and some body language to communicate with us (e.g. she will come and take our hand for us to reach something that she can’t). Sometimes, though, she grows very frustrated when we can’t immediately understand what she is trying to communicate. I know it’s not a hearing issue as she does react/interact when we speak with her or even when we call her from another room; she also loves music and dancing (she has a very good sense of rhythm). We live in Argentina so the environment is Spanish speaking. My husband’s native tongue is English and mine is Spanish, but we both speak each other’s languages as well. So I must admit that among ourselves we interchange the use of language all the time (this is at times messy …). We’ve recently read that it is all important that each parent speaks exclusively in their own native tongue to the child and in her presence. So we have now, quite recently, started to do this. We have also recently started bonding with her much more – we are spending significantly more time in one-on-one play with her – me speaking Spanish to her and my husband speaking English to her. So we are also doing a lot more family activities with her like eating all together at the table, kitchen chores, etc.

I would still be very interested in expert advice to see if we are on the right track here or if we should be doing something differently with the use of our two languages at home. We want to be respectful of Sofía’s developmental pace but we just want to make sure that we are doing all that we can to support her progress and also that we are not missing any potential problems.

Finally, we would also be curious to know if delayed speech production in bilingual babies is sometimes misdiagnosed/misunderstood as a connection problem between the baby and other people.

Thanks for your help!

Cristina and Scott”

Dear Cristina and Scott,

Thank you for your questions.  I will start with your question about bilingual models and will then address your questions about speech-language delay.

There are many ways to create bilingual environments for your children.  My philosophy is that it is best to adopt the model that comes most naturally to you, as that is the one that will likely result in the greatest success.   The model you described, in which each parent speaks to the child in a different language, is the “one parent one language” method.  Given that your native tongue is English, Scott, and yours is Spanish, Cristina, it seems like a very appropriate choice to use your native tongue when communicating with Sofia.

Let’s talk about Sofia now.  You mentioned a number of things that suggest a possible communication impairment.  You did not mention whether or not you have had an evaluation by a speech-language pathologist, psychologist, or other developmental specialist.  If you have not, I would strongly recommend you do that.

You mentioned that Sofia is almost 3-years old and has very few words and no phrases.  Children with typical language development (monolingual or bilingual) typically have 50 words and start combining two words at about 18 months.  In the second year of life children typically acquire hundreds of words and by three years of age children can use complete sentences and start using complex sentences.  Based on your description, Sofia’s language skills appear to be significantly behind.

Several of the things you said would make me want to explore her joint attention, which is a child’s ability to share their experiences with others through gestures or eye gaze.  Joint attention is an important component of social language.  You asked whether “delayed speech production in bilingual babies is sometimes misdiagnosed/misunderstood as a connection problem between the baby and other people.” This reduced connection goes deeper than language.  When we see children who have difficulty connecting socially with other children, we see that across their languages.  The dual language environment is not the cause of it, nor will it have a negative impact on it.  A treatment plan for a child with limited social language will focus in increasing joint attention and social interaction in either or both languages.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA.org) has a provider locator that includes speech-language pathologists worldwide.  You can also search the ASHA website for information and research articles on joint attention.

Best,

Ellen Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

My son has had speech therapy since he was 3 and was recently “diagnosed” by the school psychologist as having PDD-NOS. He was accepted in a dual language program and is mostly an English speaker. My question is, being in this program would it be beneficial or detrimental to his learning? I was told like most people that I was confusing him when I was speaking to him in Spanish as a baby and stopped it and started to speak only in English. I feel it would be beneficial to him to learn another language, but also feel uneasy about setting him back in his academics. The school told me he did not qualify due to his speech delay. Is there any research suggesting my child should not be in this program? Thanks for your help!

Liz Guzmán

Dear Liz,

The research that exists on children who are bilingual who have speech and language impairments focuses on circumstantial bilinguals.  Circumstantial bilinguals are those whose life circumstances require them to hear (and use) two languages and the literature indicates that it is not detrimental for children with speech and language delays to learn two languages in a bilingual environment. Bilingual children who have speech and language impairments typically demonstrate similar deficits across both of their languages.  For example, those who have difficulty with word endings generally have difficulty with word endings in both languages, with some variation resulting from the differences in the languages.  This does not mean that they are unable to communicate in both languages or that they are confused because they are hearing two languages.

Elective bilinguals, in contrast to circumstantial bilinguals, are those who decide to learn a second language and who seek out an environment that is bilingual.  Many families are electing to put their children in dual language programs to give them an opportunity to be bilingual.  The research on bilingual children with language impairments has not focused on this population, though I suspect we will start to see more research on this topic with the advent of so many dual language programs.

Ultimately, you and the educators at your son’s school will need to collaborate to decide what the best placement is for your son. I think the biggest thing to consider is how much support you can provide for your son in an elective bilingual environment.  If you have a high level of proficiency in both languages and can support your child in a bilingual program, it will likely be more successful than if you cannot provide that support.

Another thing to consider is what level of language your son has?  There is a large range of language skills in children with PDD-NOS.  Some children learn language easily and generalize the rules of language with ease.  Other children struggle with the rules of languages.  An elective bilingual program will be easier for the student who easily learns the rules of language.

The structure of the program is also an important thing to consider.  Many dual language programs have one day in Spanish and one day in English, while others split the day in half, and still others switch by class.  Does your son make transitions easily?  You will want to consider how many times in a day your son will need to transition from one language to the other and whether you think he will be able to do that successfully.

Another variable in program structure is the percent of time each language is spoken.  Some programs start with a high percentage of Spanish, such as 80% and then gradually add more English.  Ask what the plan is for your program and consider whether the structure will work for your child.

I wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

Ellen Kester

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

My son has language delays. I guess it is because we speak Spanish and English at home.  My native language is Spanish and my husband’s is English. Before my son was born we researched the best way to help Ian learn both languages: the general recommendation from a multitude of sources is “one-person, one-language.”  My husband mostly follows that recommendation, but I do not.  I think that as we will live in Latin America for a while Ian will naturally have more opportunities to learn Spanish than English. Then, all of the extra resources to help him speak are in English: books, videos, songs, etc. Almost always this material is reviewed together by Ian and me, so it is unavoidable that I speak English.  When we started doing homeschooling (there is no school for my son here -we live in a rural town in Mexico), I really did not know which language I should speak during the lessons. Finally, I spoke in English and that pushed me to keep speaking in English through the day to show him the application of the vocabulary. But, as I am not very fluent in English, I speak to him in Spanish too.

My son is speaking only English. I know he can understand me when I speak in Spanish to him, but he does not say a word in Spanish.

So, I wonder if all this will be a hindrance as Ian’s language skills develop.  Could you give some advice on how to help my son’s language develop? (He is 27 months).  Thanks.

Sandra Villalobos

Hi Sandra-
Kudos for the efforts you and your husband are making to raise your son bilingually. First and foremost I want to reassure you that research indicates that raising a child bilingually does not cause a language/speech delay.  I was unsure from your letter if your child was diagnosed by a speech-language pathologists as having a language delay.  Therefore, I will touch on two points (bilingual language development and  varying language delivery methods) in hopes of providing you with some helpful information.

Looking at Bilingual Language Development

One think to keep in mind in understanding bilingual language development is the importance of examining the child’s language skills globally (summed skills in both Spanish and English).  Often children will demonstrate knowledge of a concept in one language (e.g. certain foods), yet will identify an alternate concept in the other language (e.g. colors); likely depending on the language used to expose them to that particular concept. The expectation is that when all concepts are “summed” (i.e. getting “credit” for individual concepts in both languages) they generally show a similar number of concepts/vocabulary knowledge as a monolingual child. The mistake would be examining their concept knowledge/vocabulary in only one language; which does not accurately reflect their full language abilities.  Research indicates that when looked at as a whole, a bilingual child reaches similar language milestones as a monolingual child (See Barbara Pearson’s work).

You mentioned that receptively he responds to both languages. Expressively, you noted he is using only English; however, I was unsure of the vocabulary size or length of utterances he is using.  What I can share is that for a child his age he should globally have approximately 200-300 words/concepts and be constructing two-word combinations.  One suggestion to incorporate in your daily activities is Label, Label, and Label.  Keep engaging your son in language rich activities.  Name the items he eats, plays with, and puts on.  Give him choices to assist in vocabulary development.  Look at story books/pictures/ things outside, pointing, finding, and labeling objects and actions can be incorporated into almost any environment you are in.  I know you said you live in a rural town so I am not sure of the accessibility for a play group? Also, if you continue with concerns of his language development it may be helpful to seek advice from a certified Speech Language Pathologist. I am not familiar with Mexico’s process for this or your access to one?  The American Speech Hearing  Association has a website www.ASHA.org with information that may assist you.

Which Language do I use?

The method of One Parent One Language, while a popular method, is only one style of raising a bilingual child; every family is different ,therefore the language delivery in each home will vary and that is “Ok!”  Children learn to differentiate between the languages spoken to them, be it English by Dad, Spanish by mom, or English and Spanish by Mom.  Research points out that there is no evidence that children with typical development nor children with a language delay become “confused” by hearing the parent speak two languages. There is nothing wrong with you and your husband using a language combination that you feel comfortable with and that works for your family dynamics.

We hope this has been of some help.

Regards,

Adrianne Arrieta-Morales and Ellen Kester
Bilinguistics

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

“I have been reading many interesting posts here and have found relief in knowing that no one way is the best to raise bilingual kids. I was also happy to see the evidence that supports that bilingualism does not cause confusion. My questions is, can bilingualism cause a delay in speech, though?

I am an elementary teacher and a mom to a 22 month old girl. We live in California and my daughter is exposed daily to both English and Spanish: English mostly (but not exclusively) by dad, since it is his native language, and Spanish by me and her baby sitter. At this point she says about 10 words and then other sounds that stand for words but these are not real words, rather vowel sounds. Speaking of vowel sounds, she does not articulate the “o” or the “u” vowel sounds in Spanish. I am just wondering if there is cause for concern and if I should address this with a speech specialist.

The hard part is that we are moving to Spain in a couple of weeks, and because she is exposed to English, maybe that would not give the specialist the right information to work with (I don’t think many of them in Spain have experience with bilingual kids).”

Dear Susana,

Research in our field indicates that bilingualism does not cause confusion or delays in speech acquisition (sound production) or language acquisition (words and word combinations). Studies on the acquisition of sounds in Spanish-English bilingual children indicates that children may, for a short time, demonstrate less accuracy in the production of consonant sounds when the sounds are not identical in both languages, but these differences do not greatly affect their intelligibility, or ability to be understood by others. An example is the production of the sounds [p], [t], and [k], which are pronounced with less aspiration or airflow in Spanish than in English. A child who learns these sounds in Spanish might use them the same way in English. While their productions are considered less accurate in English, they are still within the normal range of production and can still be understood. Accuracy is not reduced for sounds that are the same in both languages.

You mentioned that your daughter does not use the “o” and “u” vowel sounds of Spanish. These sounds also occur in the English language so it would not be expected that they would be influenced or reduced in accuracy as a result of exposure to both English and Spanish.

With regard to language acquisition, research indicates that the vocabulary of children who are bilingual is similar in size to that of monolingual children. We often look at the number of different concepts children express in words in both languages. We give children “credit” for all of the concepts they express in words in both languages. For example, “dog,” “perro,” and “cat” represent two concepts because “dog” and “perro” are translation equivalents. By 18 months of age, children typically have or are approaching 50 words (concepts) and are at the early stages of producing 2-word phrases.

You stated that your daughter is 22 months of age and uses approximately 10 different words. Given this information, I would recommend that you have her evaluated by a bilingual speech-language pathologist. The American Speech-Language Hearing Association (www.asha.org) has a search option for finding speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in your area. They list ASHA accredited SLPs all over the world so if you are already in Spain, this might be a helpful way to find someone who can provide an evaluation.

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

“Hi.  My question is a slight variation to the one regarding bilingual children with speech delay. We live in the United States. My daughter is about to turn 3 and has recently been diagnosed with severe speech delay with the expressive level at 11 months and the receptive level at 14 months. She has also been evaluated by child psychologists and their conclusion is that she has some autistic features but is not ruled in for Autistic Spectrum Disorder due to her severe speech delay. Their recommendation is for her to get into the Speech-Language Classes through the local school district and get re-evaluated in 6 months.

Since she was born, I have been speaking to her in Mandarin Chinese (my native language) and my wife, who is a native English speaker and knows very little Mandarin, spoke to her in English and and some phrases in Mandarin Chinese that she picked up from me. We also have a babysitter that speaks Spanish to her since she was one.
Since she has been diagnosed with speech delay about 1.5 months ago, my wife has been speaking to my daughter 100% in English. Now my wife is asking me to drop the Mandarin Chinese completely and speaks to my daughter only in English. Do you think this is the right approach? My wife is a stay-at-home mom and I work full-time so I see my daughter about 1-2 hours on weekdays and all day on weekends. Thank you so much for your help.”

Dear Jeffrey,

Congratulations to you and your wife for providing your daughter with exposure to both of your languages/cultures.  More than half of the world’s population is bilingual so your family is more the norm than the exception.

There are two important points I want to make.  First, learning two (or more) languages does not cause language delay/impairment. Second, children who have language delays are not made more delayed by exposure to more than one language.  Current research indicates that it is not detrimental for children with language delays to be exposed to more than one language.  Studies have found that children with language delays who are in dual language environments gain language at the same rate at those in monolingual environments.

One important thing that we always like to consider is the language model that children are exposed to.  You mentioned that your wife knows very little Mandarin Chinese so it makes sense for her to stop using Mandarin with your daughter because she can provide richer language input in English.  Your English is obviously very strong so you can provide rich language input in both languages.

The language that a child hears strongly influences the language the child produces.  You mentioned that your daughter is with your wife hearing English all day every day and is with you for 1-2 hours on the weekdays and is with both of you on the weekends.  Given that information, your daughter will probably have a larger vocabulary in English and will have a stronger representation of the structure of English than Mandarin.  Do not let that discourage you from using your native language with your daughter. Often people do not realize what they are asking parents to give up when they suggest that a parent stop using their native language with their child. Language is an integral part of culture and if you do not give that gift to your children early in life, it can be much more difficult to do later in life.

The recommendation from the school district for your daughter to start speech-language classes and be re-evaluated in 6 months sounds like a very appropriate recommendation given the details you shared.  When the re-evaluation is completed in six months, be sure you are a part of the team since you are the one who can best share what your daughter understands and says in Mandarin Chinese.

Best of luck to you. 祝你好運 ( zhù nǐ háoyùn),

Ellen Kester, Ph.D.

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

Today’s question was sent by fellow blogger Gabriela:

“Since my oldest son (3 years) was born we decided to speak to him only in Spanish, figuring that he would easily learn English later on. My plan was to start teaching him English gradually sometime after his 2nd birthday. However, I started noticing a speech delay around his 2nd birthday. At 2 1/2 I took him to be tested and he was found to have a speech delay.  However, the testing was mainly based on my reports of his use of words. The speech therapist recommended that we continue to use only Spanish at this time since using English as well would be confusing to a child with a speech delay. Further, he has not really received any type of speech therapy due to the fact that there are not any Spanish-speaking speech therapists around.

Recently, I have started introducing a little English to him since I noticed his vocabulary has expanded a bit more and my hope is that if he learns English he can recieve speech therapy if he continues to need it. He is even saying a few words in English now. And just recently he started putting two-word sentences together, but only after I request him to do so (but it is still visibly hard for him).

I guess my question is, should I continue using mainly Spanish or is it okay to speak to him some more in English now? I am a mental health therapist but currently a stay-at-home mom, and I feel sooo lost when it comes to speech issues.  Now I feel guilty for having only taught my son Spanish since this prevented him from getting the help he needs (speech therapy), but I do want him to be bilingual.”

Dear Gabriela,

It’s great that you have given your son a solid base in Spanish and that you want to introduce English now.  You have only recently started using English with your son and he is already using a few English words.  Clearly, he can learn English and Spanish words.

There is a very common misconception that teaching children two languages confuses them. Current research indicates that even for children who have speech and languages delays or impairments, they are not any more delayed or impaired as a result of learning two languages.  In fact, there is a lot of research that indicates improvements in cognitive flexibility and vocabulary learning as a result of learning two languages.

You did not mention where you live but if you are in the United States there are federally supported programs for birth-to-3-year-olds with language delays. These are available for all children with developmental delays—income is not a factor.  Now that your son is 3, the public school system provides programs for children with developmental delays.  I would also like to point you to a couple of resources that might be helpful.

Our team at Bilinguistics developed an intervention program, SMILE for Infants and Toddlers, aimed at enriching language in daily routines for children with language delays.  SMILE is an acronym for sign, model, imitate, label, and expand, five language enrichment techniques frequently used in language intervention.  It was developed for interventionists in early childhood programs, and includes a parent handbook. It is available through Children’s Publishing.

We also have a number of free resources available on our website.  They have been created for professional development workshops and continuing education courses but there is some very helpful information about the aspects of Spanish and English that overlap.  Addressing the overlapping areas can affect change in both languages.

It’s amazing how much guilt people are made to feel for trying to give their children the gift of two languages.  My advice to you is drop the guilt and pat yourself on the back for giving your son the opportunity to learn both English and Spanish.  The most important thing is that you create a rich language environment for your child by using one or both languages to talk to your child about the actions, objects, textures, sizes, colors, and senses of his environment as he experiences it.

Sincerely,
Ellen Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She earned her Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology and her Bachelor’s degree in Spanish at The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.”  You can read her answers here.

As always, feel free to leave your thoughts or advice about this in the comments below. You can also leave your own question for the Experts here.

“I am concerned that my five-year-old daughter is losing her Spanish skills too quickly since starting English-only kindergarten. We spoke to her primarily in Spanish since she was born. Now that she is in kindergarten in an English-only school district, she is speaking very little Spanish. My husband and I had decided to have him speak to her in Spanish and I would speak to her in English. However, I am concerned that the Spanish is losing out. My older daughters understand Spanish and can speak it when needed. We would like for our youngest daughter to be more fluent. Should we both speak to her in Spanish?”

Dear Blanca,

Language loss is a common pattern that we see when children start school in a language other than their home language.  This is especially true for younger children in a family who have older siblings who are fluent in the school language.

What we know about language is that language input drives language output.  In other words, the amount children hear a language generally matches the amount they speak that language. If your daughter is speaking English all day at school and in after-school activities and play dates with friends from school, she is clearly spending a large part of her day speaking English.  If you want her to speak more Spanish, I would recommend increasing the amount of Spanish she hears.

I think you have a good plan—that both you and your husband speak Spanish to her.

Ellen Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
President
Bilinguistics, Inc.

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She earned her Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology and her Bachelor’s degree in Spanish at The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

As always, feel free to leave your thoughts or advice about this in the comments below. You can also leave your own question for the Experts here.

We invite you to visit our sister site, SpanglishBabyFinds, where we review the coolest products made with Latino and/or bilingual kids in mind. There’s a giveaway every week!

“Does it hurt the child’s development to emphasize more than one language? I am bilingual in both Chinese and English and my husband only speaks English. My baby goes to a daycare that speaks Chinese to him. However, since we live in CA, I wanted to expose the baby to Spanish as well, which I am proficient in but no expert. We read Spanish story books as well as Chinese ones and I speak Chinese to him when I am alone with him (since my husband only understands and speaks a little Chinese, I was worried it wasn’t fair to him to speak it all the time around the house when he’s there). We also occasionally read other language picture books for fun – like French even though I can’t be sure of the pronunciation. Is being too exposed to multiple languages weakening his grasp of Chinese? I’m not worried about English since he’ll get that at school and around our friends since everyone but my family and at daycare speaks English.”

Dear Leslie,

It’s fantastic that you are exposing your child to such a variety of languages.

In the first year of life children are learning to differentiate the sounds of language.  The earlier a child is exposed to a language, the easier it is for him to differentiate and produce the sounds of that language.  This is the same reason that adult second language learners have difficulty sounding like native speakers of their second language, even if their vocabulary and syntax are perfect.

And speaking of vocabulary and syntax, you might see that your child picks up some words in Chinese, some in English, and maybe others in Spanish but does not know the word for one thing in both or all of his languages.  It is common that 70% of the words a bilingual toddler uses are unique to one language or the other while only 30% are words used in both languages.

It is also common to see the child use the syntax, or structure, of one language in the other.  For example, Spanish word order requires a noun followed by an adjective (el zapato azul/the shoe blue), whereas English word order requires the adjective first (the blue shoe).  It is very normal for children to use rules from language when producing another when they are in the learning process.  This does not mean they have a delay or that they are confused—just that they are learning.

Keep up the multi-language immersion!

Sincerely,

Ellen Kester, Ph.D. CCC-SLP
Bilinguistics

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D, CCS-LLP – A bilingual (English/Spanish) speech language professional who earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin. She earned her Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology and her Bachelor’s degree in Spanish at The University of Texas at Austin. She has provided bilingual Spanish/English speech-language services in schools, hospitals, and early intervention settings. Her research focus is on the acquisition of semantic language skills in bilingual children, with emphasis on assessment practices for the bilingual population. She is the President of Bilinguistics, which is “dedicated to enhancing speech and language services for Spanish-English bilingual children, enabling those children to achieve their highest communicative and academic potential.” You can read her answers here.

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