BrandonMommy Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Anyone have experience or insight into second language learning and speech delays? My DD4 has a bit of a a speech delay from hearing loss due to fluid in her ears. For the last year and a half, she's been immersed in a 3-hour program in a second language and we did/are doing pre-K@home leisurely (in English) in the afternoon. I was wondering, should we pull her out of the program she's in to focus more on her English until she "catches up"? We were thinking, before, to continue down the same road with her learning the second language outside the home and being homeschooled in English the rest of the day but now, I don't know. I'm wondering if I should just do KG completely in English. What do you think? Any help or direction is appreciated. Thanks, BrandonMommy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokyomarie Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Anyone have experience or insight into second language learning and speech delays? My DD4 has a bit of a a speech delay from hearing loss due to fluid in her ears. For the last year and a half, she's been immersed in a 3-hour program in a second language and we did/are doing pre-K@home leisurely (in English) in the afternoon. I was wondering, should we pull her out of the program she's in to focus more on her English until she "catches up"? We were thinking, before, to continue down the same road with her learning the second language outside the home and being homeschooled in English the rest of the day but now, I don't know. I'm wondering if I should just do KG completely in English. What do you think? Any help or direction is appreciated. Thanks, BrandonMommy It depends on your location and your ultimate goals. Is the second language the language of the community in which you live or of family members? If it is, and her delays are rather mild, it may be worthwhile keeping her in the program so she can continue to develop the skills she'll need for navigating social situations in the community or communicating with family members who use that language. If your community language is English, and this pre-school immersion program is just a nice "add-on" because you value having second language exposure, then you'll have to think about the seriousness of the delays vs. the value of the second language. Is your dd in speech therapy? If so, what does her SLP think? What do her preschool teachers think? Our daughter was growing up bilingual and her language delays were not identified until age 9 because her bilingualism was a confounding factor. Our son, on the other hand, had a severe phonological speech delay (no words at 2, about 20 single words at his 3rd birthday), and we opted not to enroll him in pre-school in the second language because he needed to develop adequate expressive language in his first language first. He has been identified as dyslexic, and has had difficulty learning this second language without the benefit of immersion (we now live in the USA). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riverland Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 nm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 I *think* the studies indicate that learning a 2nd language by immersion does not slow down the learning of the first. I'd just plow forward. Have your SLP check her every so often, just to make sure she's on track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrandonMommy Posted February 26, 2012 Author Share Posted February 26, 2012 OhElizabeth. That is what I always knew to be true in general. I also thought there was usually a time where the kids got mixed up between the languages but at some point, it would straighten out. So, I wasn't sure. Like now, the order of some of her words in a sentence seem more like the structure of the second language (noun first, then adjective for example). Tokyomarie, she has not seen a speech therapist yet as, I'm overseas, and need to research and find information about a good one. I have a feeling, though, that her speech isn't delayed enough for therapy. I'd still like to see one though, just to have the bases covered and, perhaps, get more ideas of what I can do with her at home. I've seen a lot of improvement just since I've been doing more activities with her at homeI. In the program, her teachers say she is quiet. She went from not speaking, to speaking in a kids microphone, in a group and then quietly on her own. She's still quiet though in her second year. She's repeated what she learns at home though, since the first week. So I know she's picking some of it up. It's like with most of the activities she does outside the home. She's usually quiet during them but speaks about them to me or at home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 You might look at the Linguisystems site to see what you can find that would work for her. It sounds like she could use a touch of therapeutic work together. It's not rocket science, and it's stuff you could do together to work on her language. For instance, you could play board games that bring in a lot of language and make sure you TALK during the turns. Whose turn is it? What do I do now? I got a 3! I'll move my piece three. Now your turn to spin... That's what they do in speech therapy, and you can do it right where you are with ANYTHING. Puzzles are fine, board games. I'm crazy for the Richard Scarry games, because the bring in so much language. BusyTown and the Airport games would both work well for her age and would bring in a lot of language. Those bits of effort like that will really add up and make a difference. I think the language isn't the big issue but just working with her a bit more than you might normally to work on whole language, language in context. You're sort of doubling up that experience so you can pick up the pace on the development. It will come, but that doesn't mean it has to come at it's own pace. With speech, you can get in the middle of it and speed it up with more language work together. In that sense the foreign language classes are fine too. ANY language develops the language part of the brain. They used sign language in my ds's speech therapy sessions, not merely because he came in with no speech but because it works the language part of the brain and gets it developing. So in that sense ANY language work she does is good, the more the better. But obviously you'd prefer it mainly to be in her target language. So I would say don't drop the foreign stuff but bump up your things together. Let her watch dvd's of Little Bear, Mister Rogers (it's on amazon prime!), Calliou, that sort of thing over and over so she can memorize the speech. Try to sit down with her 30 minutes a day and intentionally play in a way that works on language. Talk way more than you normally would just all the time, around the house. Tell her what you're doing and make her use her speech to get what she wants. That's how you bump this development. And just for your trivia, it's what WTM recommends in their K5 chapter too. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokyomarie Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 (edited) OhElizabeth. That is what I always knew to be true in general. I also thought there was usually a time where the kids got mixed up between the languages but at some point, it would straighten out. So, I wasn't sure. Like now, the order of some of her words in a sentence seem more like the structure of the second language (noun first, then adjective for example). BrandonMommy, what you're describing here is a sign of the language disorder/delay that I saw in my daughter who has CAPD (central auditory processing disorder) & is possibly dyslexic (based on my retropective analysis of her language and academic development). I knew when she was 3 & 4 years old that her language development in English was not quite typical, but because we were still inexperienced as parents of bilingual children I allowed others to say, "Oh, it's just because she's developing bilingually." I wasted 5 years and waited until she was 9.5yo before I got confident enough to go for an evaluation. At 9.5yo, she was having word finding difficulty in both languages, which was manifested by code-switching in an attempt to cover for her inability to call up words quickly. She would do things like begin a sentence in English & finish in Japanese, or subsitute a Japanese verb in an otherwise English sentence. Normally developing bilinguals DON'T do that after the preschool years unless they choose to intentionally for effect. If we had gone for evaluation before she was 5yo, we might have been able to get her on a better track for language development before it negatively impacted her self-esteem, which in retrospect we were coping with by the time she was 5.5yo. We found Engish-speaking professionals to do an evaluation & therapy by contacting an international school in the area. Thinking back on her test results, my daughter probably didn't score poorly enough that she would have qualified for therapy in an American public school. But there was a severe discrepancy between her language function and her non-verbal intelligence scores. By the age of testing, she had been saying for years that she was "dumb and stupid" because she was frustrated with her inability to express was she was thinking in pictures. Language therapy with an SLP helped us get back on track. Our therapist also helped me evaluate homeschool & other materials to help develop her language skills. Tokyomarie, she has not seen a speech therapist yet as, I'm overseas, and need to research and find information about a good one. I have a feeling, though, that her speech isn't delayed enough for therapy. I'd still like to see one though, just to have the bases covered and, perhaps, get more ideas of what I can do with her at home. I've seen a lot of improvement just since I've been doing more activities with her at homeI. For the reasons I mentioned above, I would encourage you to get an evaluation sooner rather than later. If the evaluation uncovers specific lagging skills, you'll be better educated about the specific materials you'll need to help your dd develop those skills. If she's very mildly delayed, maybe she won't need therapy but the therapist can be a guide for you. If it turns out that her delay is more signficant, you can do therapy now while she's still pre-school age. My son was also speech delayed, though he didn't have the language delay that my daughter had. For both children, I used the Before Five in a Row and Five in a Row curriculum for unit study. This curriculum has the parent reading the same picture book every day for five days and following it up with activities that use the vocabulary and ideas presented in the books. FIAR was a great language tool for helping my children build expressive language. In the program, her teachers say she is quiet. She went from not speaking, to speaking in a kids microphone, in a group and then quietly on her own. She's still quiet though in her second year. She's repeated what she learns at home though, since the first week. So I know she's picking some of it up. It's like with most of the activities she does outside the home. She's usually quiet during them but speaks about them to me or at home. If you have any specific questions about our experience, feel free to PM me. My daughter experienced fully bilingual education (combination of local schools & English homeschooling) until she was 12yo, at which time we returned to the USA. She is now a college graduate and doing very well. Edited February 27, 2012 by Tokyomarie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 BTW, I wouldn't want to you to construe that my suggestions were in place of therapy. I'm TOTALLY in favor of evals. This has come up on the boards, and when we pried and poked, the mom was able to find an english speaker to do the eval, like Marie is saying. My daughter never really liked the repetition of FIAR, but my son, who has speech issues, seems to thrive on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrandonMommy Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 OMG OhElizabeth! You've put into words exactly what I've been doing with her and it seems to be working well. This is one of the reasons I thought therapy might not be necessary b/c I'm already doing this stuff at home but I still would like to hear what a professional has to say about it. Once I knew for sure about her hearing loss (I had my suspicions before), I really made a concentrated effort to have her hear more speech, speak more, narrate more to her, etc throughout our day, through games, speaking more during our regular activities, when she plays, when we're in the car riding. We play I Spy, rhyme words, or I'll just turn anything into a song or chant that I thinks she'll benefit from. Where I might have left her before to play with her brother or finish an activity, I join in and sit and talk, listen, narrate. In some ways I feel like I'm speaking to her as a baby again, lol but I know she needs to hear the speech in a real context over and over and over again. Even the videos. On the advice of another parent, just about hearing good speech, I've let her watch certain videos online. So I will definitely remember your suggestions. For the games too. I'm always looking for any interesting activity that we can do together to get that speech out there. Reading your post makes me feel more confident about what I'm doing. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrandonMommy Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 If you have any specific questions about our experience, feel free to PM me. My daughter experienced fully bilingual education (combination of local schools & English homeschooling) until she was 12yo, at which time we returned to the USA. She is now a college graduate and doing very well. Tokyomarie, Thanks for the post tokyomarie. I really appreciate it. I've been meaning to write some more examples of her speech to share with someone and to have ready to take to see a speech therapist since I don't think she will speak much to anyone else, or, if she did it may take some time. Would that help? I also thought of recording her so they could hear her, again, in case she doesn't or is slow to speak at therapy. I can't seem to find the ones I've written before but the noun + adjective one is new in the last week or so. Before, she might have said "Can we make muffins? This week she is saying, "Can we make muffins banana?" Like I said, in the second language, that is how it would be said with the adjective coming after the noun. Also, there is no be verb and before, she'd leave them out of her English sentences too. She uses them now but sometimes they just seem thrown in. Like she added an "are" to the end of one of her sentences today. I can see her thinking before she speaks a lot. Her sentences just seem mixed up sometimes but she is getting better. Each time she gets over one thing, something else seems to crop up and, although it seems to be a problem, to ME (hearing her speech the most) it also seems like a step in the right direction. You know, like how a child uses the wrong tense but knowing they have to change the tense in the first place is a good thing? Hope that makes sense. I am actually planning to use BFIAR as soon as I can. It seems right up our alley and similar to what we do already. I love literature-based and theme-based learning so I'm pretty excited about it and have gathered quite a few activities for several of the books we now have already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Well what might come out is that the errors she's making fit where she is in her speech development when you subtract the time she had the hearing problem. My son has grammar errors in his speech, and he's 3 1/2. So if that's normal to the age, it might be that your 4 yo, when allowing for the time of hearing loss, is where you'd expect her to be. A good SLP can sort that out for you. The other thing the therapist can do is direct you on where to work. It sounds like you're doing a great job. Just checking in once a month might give you ideas on how to take it to the next level or what to focus on next. They understand how the skills develop, so they could tell you what to focus on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrandonMommy Posted February 27, 2012 Author Share Posted February 27, 2012 I do feel like that is the case with her OhElizabeth . . . that her speech may be developing normally, but just a year or so behind. But, that's just my thought. Hopefully I will find a good therapist the first time around to help figure it out. Can you all tell me, what information, if any, I should take with me about her speech or anything else? Tokyo, she doesn't see to use the languages interchangeably. To me, she just seems to use the structure of the second language but I am not bilingual myself, so not well-learned in the second language. Does that seem similar to your daughter? You've definitely given me the push to find a therapist. Thank you all so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokyomarie Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 BrandonMommy, it sounds like you have done a great job of bumping up the intensity of interactions that promote language development. Keeping going with it! I don't recall that my daughter mixed languages much when she was a preschooler because her second language was much weaker at that point than her first language. It was only later that she started doing this regularly. At the time, I didn't realize it, but it was a symptom of her word finding difficulty. Sometimes she couldn't think of the word she needed and it would come to her in the other language first so that's what would come out. At that point, she was equally fluent in both languages, but the word retrieval difficulty got in the way of expressing herself fluently. When she was a preschooler, and her second language really wasn't strong yet, she often got words out of order in her sentences. So the "man with the green hat" became the "green hat man" or compound words would get mixed up, such as "wallpaper" became "paperwall." If you think your daughter might be reticent to perform for a stranger, it would indeed be good to video some of her interactions with you & with her brother. The therapist can also use that video to evaluate her social language skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Well tell us what you find out when you get an eval! Yes, you should! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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