Bilingual Children - Delayed Speech?

[berries]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it. He babbles constantly, uses a lot of gesture and definately understands a lot, lot more than he says. However, he has monolingual friends around the same age who will say things like 'I scary big dinosaur' - and it makes me worry that there's something wrong with my son! Is there anyone out there who can reassure me?

[PeaceBlondie]

I'd suggest you and your spouse spend lots of time around him, TALKING. Show him the words for everything, not only the nouns (table, floor, etc.) but also verbs (walk, talk, eat) and adjectives (hot, cold). Let him hear both of you speaking two languages.

Some folks say that a bilingual child learns just as many words, even more, if you count both language vocabularies.

I also suggest you not talk baby talk. I was just reminding my genius 40 year old daughter how, at age 2, she sat in front of the refrigerator and talked to it. In a few minutes, she went from "fido" to "refido" to the Spanish "refriador" and almost got to the English, "refeegadoor." If we had given up and started using "fido." I don't know when she'd have gotten it right.

One of my ten grandchildren didn't talk well before age 4, because his mother was too lazy. Finally his little sister helped him!

[migrant]

My ex wife was Korean, and we knew many multilingual families where one parent would speak their native langage, and the other english.

I remember, specifically, 3 couples whose children took a little longer to talk, but when they did, they were proficient in both languages.

My suggestion, keep speaking both languages, but like peaceblondie suggests, lots of talk!

BTW my ex was too lazy to teach the kids Korean, I ended up enrolling them, later in life, in Korean language schools. They always regret not learning the language.

[Plus]

Don't worry, eventually he'll talk, and two years from now you'd most probably wish he talked just a tiny bit less...

There's nothing to worry about it yet. I know a couple of local kids who didn't talk at two but grew up perfectly normal.

[TokyoT]

Children develop at different rates, and many times children raise in multilingual households appear to develop slower than their peers in a single language environment. From what I have read most of the time the multilingual children usually catch up between the ages of 5-7. There are exceptions to this of course (children that develop faster and children that develop slower).

My wife speaks Thai to my daughter and I speak only English to her. Her English was well behind her Thai as I am really the only one that speaks English around her. We started sending her to an English speaking pre-school earlier this month and I can already see the improvement in her English skills – due to the increase in exposure.

My sister-in-laws little boy is an example of a child developing a little slower. He is approaching two and he has a very limited vocabulary in both English and Thai. I am sure he will catch up eventually. Just developing his language skills at a different rate.

[MahNuad]

Berries -

I'm a former foreign language teacher and somewhat up on second language acquisition research. I'd totally second the suggestion that you both talk to your child a lot - no baby talk. It's also important that you and your wife consistently speak just one language with the kid. i.e., you English only, your wife Thai only, no crossover. Be as consistent as possible. This helps minimize the inevitable (but temporary) confusion between the languages.

It's normal for kids in a bilingual environment to confuse the two languages at first, but usually by the time they're around five, they'll have it the two totally separated. Research pretty consistently shows that children raised bilingually from the start like that have higher IQ scores and general language skills compared to monolingual kids - all other factors kept even, of course.

Good luck.

[fxm88]

Hey Bearries! You sure do worry a lot. Maybe you should try to relax and not fret so much?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/edito...ents-edit_x.htm

[berries]

you English only, your wife Thai only, no crossover.

It's not only farang men with Thai wives who post on these sites you know - I am a female farang with a Thai husband!

Thank you for your post though - I am well aware of all the things I should be doing and I have been trying. I actually work so my son spends a lot of the day with his Burmese nanny who does only speak English to him but with a very thick accent. My husband speaks a mixture of Thai and English but he speaks very quickly and even when he slows down it's about double the speed of a regular person. I think it's also partly that all my son's needs are met by only speaking gibberish so he's maybe not motivated enough to actually talk. He's just started at an international school so hopefully being in that environment will spur him on a bit.

Hey Bearries! You sure do worry a lot. Maybe you should try to relax and not fret so much?

Normally when people visit forums it's because they're concerned about something that their friends and family can't help with. I don't come on here to chat with strangers about nothing - I have friends for that. As a mother of small children living in a country that has very few similarities to the one I grew up in and understand, I find a lot to be concerned about. I certainly don't come on this forum to talk to people like you. Please stop posting on my topics.

[billd766]

Our son was 2 on 1st August and he is sort of tri-lingual with a Thai Mum, English Dada (who sometimes speaks fractured Thai) and some Muser hilltribe people who work for us.

When he first meets strangers he doesn't say anything but once he knows you he won't stop chattering.

When he sees the 18 wheel truck/trailers he says Mae, rot yai yai but for me it is Dada big, t..uck as he hasn't quite got the R sound yet.

He chatters more in Thai but that is because he is with his Mum more than me, but he is getting there.

Kids, I love them (spit roasted so the fat drips off and there is some nice crackling).

I couldn't eat a whole one though as I can't find bread big enough for a sandwich.

[berries]

Our son was 2 on 1st August and he is sort of tri-lingual with a Thai Mum, English Dada (who sometimes speaks fractured Thai) and some Muser hilltribe people who work for us.

When he first meets strangers he doesn't say anything but once he knows you he won't stop chattering.

When he sees the 18 wheel truck/trailers he says Mae, rot yai yai but for me it is Dada big, t..uck as he hasn't quite got the R sound yet.

He chatters more in Thai but that is because he is with his Mum more than me, but he is getting there.

Kids, I love them (spit roasted so the fat drips off and there is some nice crackling).

I couldn't eat a whole one though as I can't find bread big enough for a sandwich.

I wanted reassurance not stories of how brilliant other bi (or tri) lingual children are!

[pedro01]

Our son was 2 on 1st August and he is sort of tri-lingual with a Thai Mum, English Dada (who sometimes speaks fractured Thai) and some Muser hilltribe people who work for us.

When he first meets strangers he doesn't say anything but once he knows you he won't stop chattering.

When he sees the 18 wheel truck/trailers he says Mae, rot yai yai but for me it is Dada big, t..uck as he hasn't quite got the R sound yet.

He chatters more in Thai but that is because he is with his Mum more than me, but he is getting there.

Kids, I love them (spit roasted so the fat drips off and there is some nice crackling).

I couldn't eat a whole one though as I can't find bread big enough for a sandwich.

I wanted reassurance not stories of how brilliant other bi (or tri) lingual children are!

Berries

My son had the same problem. Apparently it is much more common in boys than girls. My son used words but also babbled a lot - he is almost 5 and he has the speech development of a 2 year old.

We took him to local doctors - bumrungrad, bangkok nursing home, bangkok hospital, chulalongkorn etc. Pretty much all of them took a look at him for 2 minutes and said 'autism'. We never beleived this because my son is so sociable.

In the end - we found PSI Bangkok (http://www.psiadmin.com/) and got Donna Murray - a psychologist to do an assesment. She ruled out autism completely and recommended Atoc (http://www.atocbkk.com/) where he is now. Some kids just need an extra push/specialised help to get them there. My son is one of them. He is coming along in leaps and bounds now.

I'd recommend getting a professional assesment and then going from there.

If you want to PM me - feel free to do so. I take my son to Lumpini park on Saturday afternoons, you could always bring your kid along & meet my son - we could compare experiences.

Good Luck

Pedro

[Neeranam]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it. He babbles constantly, uses a lot of gesture and definately understands a lot, lot more than he says. However, he has monolingual friends around the same age who will say things like 'I scary big dinosaur' - and it makes me worry that there's something wrong with my son! Is there anyone out there who can reassure me?

Berries, I think it is perfectly normal for a 'bi-lingual' toddler to have difficulties in talking.

All the kids I've seen(used to be a teacher here) were slow to talk. The experts say that they usually are behind other kids until about aged 7 or 8.

I used to worry about my daughter when she was that age, now I really wish she'd put a sock in it(at nearly 4).

Never talk baby talk to him. Also I told my Thai spouse to NEVER try to speak to her in English.

[think_too_mut]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it.

My baby is now 2.5, technically bilingual family, practicaly - monolingual as I am there 1 in 8 weeks.

She has been going to nursery (all Thai children) since 1yr old and when she was 2 she could barely speak a few words.

It has erupted last month without anyone doing anything different. She talks and talks, asks questions, show content/discontent with answers and all things usual for kids.

Had I been around her full time, I would have been worried she could not speak better when she was 2.

[PeaceBlondie]

One mistake that my twin daughter made with her first child is that she didn't work on helping him learn. She accepted hand signals and totally wrong pronunciations when he was still 3.5 years old. He had a lazy mouth and was still talking wrong at age 6. He's quite the little misbehaved demon, too. I know he's my grandkid, but the other nine grandchildren are far better.

[Ijustwannateach]

I agree with PB about what you should be doing, but don't panic if it doesn't go so fast. Children do develop differently, as TokyoT says. One way of thinking says that he will learn the proper words once he really needs to use them- you can hurry this along by refusing to understand his baby language, I would guess. If you really think the differences are alarmingly large, you should probably get an assessment as Pedro suggests.

[Jasmine]

Berries, I think it is perfectly normal for a 'bi-lingual' toddler to have difficulties in talking.

All the kids I've seen(used to be a teacher here) were slow to talk. The experts say that they usually are behind other kids until about aged 7 or 8.

This is exactly what we were told and it was true for my daughter. When she started school at 4 I was really concerned because she seemed behind the other kids in her speech, now at 7 her speech is fine and there were never concerns at school

[berries]

I think my son read my topic and today he said please (peas), dirty (ditty) and up (ugh)!

[Siwanan]

Hi berries!

I'm also farang woman living in Thailand, nice to meet You here!

The situation of my children are not quite the same than Yours. My children are adopted from Thailand. Older one was 11 months then, so he didn't speak anything then but started to talk pretty soon our language.

Younger one was 2 years when came to our family. He knew just few Thai words, didn't really talk..but changed the language smoothly and before he was 3 years, he spoke "perfectly" our language. I think it helped that out older son really speaks a lot..

In our country in Europe specialists say that there is no worries about talking before child is 3 years old.

There are many,many children I know who doesn't speak when they are 2 years (I used to work in kindergarten), some even almost 3. Then suddenly they start to talk. Children learn languages by listening, so just keep on talking!

[mamastar]

I have to agree that it differs depending on the child. I seem to recall my son's extremely limited vocabulary until he was at least 3.

He's now 5, and been brought up in a bilingual environment. Until a couple of months ago, for well over a year, he had a very bad stutter. This was when his English wasn't very good, yet he stuttered in even his native tongue. I think bilingual children absorb so much more than monolinguals, in terms of vocabulary, grammar and culture to boot. Perhaps because of this, they may be slower to start speaking, as they need to sort out in their minds the differences between their two (or three) languages. Since my son has been going to international school the past few months (before, his schooling was in his native tongue), his stutter has gradually disappeared as his English has improved.

I think the individual child's personality, environment learning the languages as well as siblings may affect speech. I was brought up bilingual, I have two elder siblings, and started speaking at the youngest age. Perhaps olding siblings help, who knows.

[berries]

Thank you all for your reassurance. I think I am being slightly premature. He is actually using new words every day and I think my failing was not insisting that he said something before I gave him what he wanted. I'm now asking him to name his toys or say drink, please - whatever - before he gets what he wants. In his life he also has to deal with some very different accents - I'm from the Uk, his dad's from Thailand, his nanny's from Burma, his teacher's from Australia and these nationalities do say certain English words so differently that it may well sound like different languages to him! I find it very cute when I ask him to say thank you and he to me! It's definately coming.

[sylvafern]

Hi berries,

I have a son similar to yours - he's two next week and his speech is definitely further behind his peers (he's in daycare at an international school). It's just as you say - just when I get excited about some new thing he says, I hear a child younger than him speaking in perfectly pronounced sentences! I'm forever getting paranoid about it and worried that he has special needs (!) but everyone just laughs at me and tells me I am being paranoid and to give him a chance! His language development really came along when I took him home to NZ for two months recently - he was immersed in an English speaking environment - but the downside of that was, without his dad there speaking Thai to him, by the time he came back he'd stopped using (and forgotten) the Thai words he was able to say before the holiday. Whenever I hear other toddlers from English speaking only backgrounds speaking much better than him, I just tell myself that, even if he can't speak properly in either language, he has excellent comprehension in two languages which those other children don't have. Besides, like others have said, it really does depend on the child. My mum said she was really worried about my youngest sister because she didn't say a word until she was two, but when she started speaking, she spoke in sentences and missed out all the other stages.

sylvafern

[Maizefarmer]

I know nothing on this subject except that I have lived here 20 years and have a Thai wife and 2 children from the relationship. One is just about to go to Uni (in the USA) and the other is just starting secondary school.

While growing up mom always spoke Thai to the kids and I always spoke English. They are fluent in both languages - and read and write them each as well. Both also speak Chinese, having taken lessons at school throughout their schooling years - that was my wish as I am a firm believer that any Asian kid at school nowadays is going to be growing up / living / working in an Asian enviroment that is going to be dominated by China in a few - and been able to communicate in the language will be a big plus point.

Up untill they were 3 years old it was a constant "hassle" to understand them properly - from about 3yrs onwards it started to fall into place. Conclusion : I would'nt be to concerned for the time been.

Tim

[kalaminsa]

You don't have to worry , there are plenty of countries where more than one language is spoken and the adults there can all talk !

Speech development is very individual , as long as there is some progress by the age of 2-3 there is nothing to worry about.

[Barney_the_Dinosaur]

Agree about not using baby-talk, but at the other extreme I don't think complex sentences assist learning.

I say 'shoes shoes' and 18 mth old goes and gets his shoes. He can do the same if told in Thai.

However long rambling instructions don't seem to gel.

We've also been subject to the 'oh, he's probably autistic' line from some idiot Doctor who was examining him for one minute.

[Master of the court]

My son will be two next month and is still making almost no sense when he talks. He has a few words that he uses fairly consistently: bye, car (boys!), woof, quack, mama and D (for dad) - and that's it. He babbles constantly, uses a lot of gesture and definately understands a lot, lot more than he says. However, he has monolingual friends around the same age who will say things like 'I scary big dinosaur' - and it makes me worry that there's something wrong with my son! Is there anyone out there who can reassure me?

Berries, I think it is perfectly normal for a 'bi-lingual' toddler to have difficulties in talking.

All the kids I've seen(used to be a teacher here) were slow to talk. The experts say that they usually are behind other kids until about aged 7 or 8.

I used to worry about my daughter when she was that age, now I really wish she'd put a sock in it(at nearly 4).

Never talk baby talk to him. Also I told my Thai spouse to NEVER try to speak to her in English.

Rubbish, who are the experts.........!! I brought my daughter to an International School when she was 3,1/2 and I was told from the American "expert" the same thing as writting above and got some prints........useless..........Dont read books from US........in EU its normal for many kids to have 2 or 3 languages without any problems at all.My own daughter (now 7) speaks 3 totally different languages fluently.

Also the expert forgot to look around on the school.......to see how many different nationalities was speaking fluent english.....plus plus plus

My daughter only wanted to speak Japanese (live in Japan) until she was 3 and even I always spoke Danish to her...........but suddenly its coming and even we never spoke english direct to her she suddenly showed she understood that too..

Berrie, if you are worried about your own languages then bring you kid to your country for a Month or two......and you will see a BIG developement .........if you let your kid play everyday with other kids.

And like many others already said........at age 2 dont worry.........Im sure your kid will surprise you very soon

[thaigene2]

Hey Bearries! You sure do worry a lot. Maybe you should try to relax and not fret so much?

Normally when people visit forums it's because they're concerned about something that their friends and family can't help with. I don't come on here to chat with strangers about nothing - I have friends for that. As a mother of small children living in a country that has very few similarities to the one I grew up in and understand, I find a lot to be concerned about. I certainly don't come on this forum to talk to people like you. Please stop posting on my topics.

OK - I know this is an old post, but come on, your being a bit harsh aren't you? Then again, I saw "Nat-a-leee" the other night on Thai TV, and she "looked" like you "sound" here..

If you don't want to talk to us...talk to her. You're lucky you've found someone to talk to who understands your concerns. Maybe Nat-a-leee is travelling in the same goofy circles as you? Then again, you said you have friends to talk to..How "hi-so"..

Mother-in-law slapped you yet?

[El Taco Loco]

I would love to hear an update, actually, from the OP.

[rcalsop]

Do not worry if the kid is developing normally in other areas but speech, not a problem ..we had the same worries with our last son then bang multi language suddenly happpened now I wish for the old days ....so does my wife .

[Plus]

I would love to hear an update, actually, from the OP.

Send a PM?

Edited September 26, 2007 by Plus

[El Taco Loco]

Her update here would benefit all, not just me.