Dr advises that bilingualism causes problems

[saw]

Which is of course complete and utter nonsense. I'm bilingual, so are the three older ones, and #4 (adopted from China at 2.5 yo in Feb) will be. We've been at the ENTs to check his hearing (he has fluid in his ears so they make us keep coming back). This ENT told me that we should not raise D to be bilingual as it is a fact that bilingualism can lead to problems.

This is ridiculous, but what's even more ridiculous is that this guy wears a white coat and acts all important and gets to spread misinformation to people who may not know better. So I thought I'd send him and the hospital some information on the latest research (like, research done anytime in the last half century) that shows that bilingualism is in fact a good thing. And then I'll be finding a new hospital and new ENT!

Anyone have any favorite articles? I have the books on the subject here, so I'll send those titles, but I thought I'd ask here to see whether anyone knows of anything great. Thanks!

 

S

mom to three bilinguals and one Chinese speaker.

[Rosie_0801]

Bilingualism in general, or specifically with hearing loss? If the latter, the first ten pages of "Educating Deaf Children Bilingually" by Shawn Neal Mahshie is very good, though it will have you gnashing your teeth and the stupidity of deaf education everywhere other than Sweden. Not sure where you'd find the book, but I found it in our university library.

 

Rosie

[cathmom]

What does Sweden do with deaf education????

[mktyler]

The doctors only understand part of the problem. The reason for concern in bilingualism is not the bilingualism itself but a situation common in immigrant children and children of impoverished backgrounds: bilingual deficit disorder (I think that's the term). Anyway, what it means is that the child does not become an expert in either language and therefore does not develop the upper levels of expression and though that are invaluable in adult level communication. So, as long as your children become expert, able to read and understand and speak about complex topics, in at least one of the languages there is no cause for concern. It is important for your children to hear and be required to speak at higher levels of comprehension to develop their linguistic capacity to the fullest.

 

Many immigrant children, already linguistically impoverished by their lives in their native lands, become further impoverished as their parents try to help them by speaking in broken English. Thus, they don't get the advantage of expert level in their native tongue, nor is school and kid English (which is what they'll experience) enough to move them into expert level in English--at least for a long time. Many of these kids also struggle with learning to read English because of its complex orthography and poor teaching methods. Therefore they don't get the benefit of reading high level material in English, or for that matter their native language.

 

Anyway, you are correct, that you probably don't have anything to worry about, however the doctors are expressing a valid concern.

 

Best wishes!

 

Melissa

Minnesota

Reading Program Junkie

dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

[WishboneDawn]

 

Anyway, you are correct, that you probably don't have anything to worry about, however the doctors are expressing a valid concern.

 

 

Sounds more like he has a little bit of information and is making a ridiculous inference. The concerns you mentioned reffered to a very specific situation and he should not be condemning bilingualism in general based on that.

[T Baer]

The doctors only understand part of the problem. The reason for concern in bilingualism is not the bilingualism itself but a situation common in immigrant children and children of impoverished backgrounds: bilingual deficit disorder (I think that's the term). Anyway, what it means is that the child does not become an expert in either language and therefore does not develop the upper levels of expression and though that are invaluable in adult level communication. So, as long as your children become expert, able to read and understand and speak about complex topics, in at least one of the languages there is no cause for concern. It is important for your children to hear and be required to speak at higher levels of comprehension to develop their linguistic capacity to the fullest.

 

Many immigrant children, already linguistically impoverished by their lives in their native lands, become further impoverished as their parents try to help them by speaking in broken English. Thus, they don't get the advantage of expert level in their native tongue, nor is school and kid English (which is what they'll experience) enough to move them into expert level in English--at least for a long time. Many of these kids also struggle with learning to read English because of its complex orthography and poor teaching methods. Therefore they don't get the benefit of reading high level material in English, or for that matter their native language.

 

Anyway, you are correct, that you probably don't have anything to worry about, however the doctors are expressing a valid concern.

 

Best wishes!

 

Melissa

Minnesota

Reading Program Junkie

dd(11) dd(6) ds(5) ds(1)

 

 

learn English. We laughed later at this, but we had to eat canned Cheddar Cheese soup instead of Chicken Noodle soup. I found out that I liked Cheese soup so it wasn't really a loss.

[Friederike in Persia]

The generalisation is off and I'm sure your fourth will make it just fine. ;)

 

However, having lived out of my home country for 15 years now, I've seen families do all sorts of things when it came to languages, and a few times it didn't work out and the child ended up without having a full grasp of at least one language. None of their situations was comparable to yours though!

 

Just wanted to say that sometimes it doesn't seem to work out, most of the time that means that one language gets dropped though.

[Rosie_0801]

What does Sweden do with deaf education????

 

Avoid the problem Melissa is talking about. Many deaf kids in your country and mine end up without language fluency in any language because there is this idea that a child's first/native language needs to be English and a signed language will stop them learning it. Of course learning a signed language will prevent a deaf kid from learning English as a first language, but this is not actually a bad thing. Y'know why? They can learn it as a second language! Those deaf kids in Sweden come out of high school fluent in Signed Swedish, literate in Swedish and English, and will have taken speech classes if their parents wanted them too. Those speech classes are extras, though, and don't cut into classroom time, where they are taught via Signed Swedish. By the age of 9 (if I remember correctly) these kids can discuss the differences in grammar between spoken Swedish and Signed Swedish, and explain the reasons for those differences. If our deaf kids were taught to sign from the beginning, they'd be ready at school age to begin learning English. The fact of the matter is, a deaf kid does not have full access to English and can't learn it adequately by immersion like a hearing kid. It's also much easier to learn a second language if you already have a first language. (Simultaneous language learning as an infant is a different situation.) Too many times I've seen parents with deaf toddlers who have chosen against signing because it's too much trouble to learn. Uh huh. It's easier for your family to learn to sign than it is for the kid to learn to hear. Or, "little Jimmy is doing just fine at the moment." Little Jimmy is 2, so you don't expect much response, and wouldn't get much even if the kiddo was hearing. When Jimmy is 4, or 6, or 12, you're going to find out exactly how much he wasn't understanding because you do expect a response from kids that age, and should be getting one.

 

Then there's the whole "socialization" issue...

 

Mm. Pet topic. Did you notice? :blush:

 

Rosie

[Merry]

when I was growing up and if I hadn't the kind of personality that loved to stay home and read books, my English would be terrible today. Even now, I still have to keep up with my reading to keep up with my English skills. I had oral education which did help me learn how to talk somewhat but it slowed my language development a lot. I'm not sure about the ASL being taught as the first language being effective though? Wouldn't signed English be better for learning English itself? The deaf children do need immersion in English to get good at it which they won't get if they use only ASL which is the educational fad in many residential schools. There's a raging debate about that going on in the deaf community.

[stripe]

Medical professionals love to give advice about many things they know nothing about. One (short lived) pediatrician advised my husband (this discussion took place in English, of course) to pretend he didn't understand English. Ridiculous on all fronts, and utterly impractical since I don't speak his language very well at all! Let's not get into the racist comments I've gotten, either. Unless you want to do some sort of office workshop, or you plan to have an extensive relationship with this person, I am not sure it's worth your time, unfortunately. If it's unbearable, I'd try to find a better doctor.

[Rosie_0801]

I'm not sure about the ASL being taught as the first language being effective though? Wouldn't signed English be better for learning English itself? The deaf children do need immersion in English to get good at it which they won't get if they use only ASL which is the educational fad in many residential schools. There's a raging debate about that going on in the deaf community.

 

Ah, you've plugged a few issues into that paragraph. To address the first: What's wrong with ASL? Is it inferior to any other language in the world? (I think it's ugly, but I'm an Auslan user :P ) Would it be ok for a kid's first language to be Spanish instead of ASL? Is one language better than another language? I'm not talking about whether it is more widely used, or more prestigious. I'm asking if any language has features that makes it inherintly better than another. Would ASL be effective as a first language? Sure it would. A language is a language. Those Swedish kids learn Signed Swedish as a first language and come out of high school triligual. The proof is in the pudding, as they say... For the purposes of developing into a language user (in contrast to the Wild Children I'm sure you've all read about) any language will do. It just so happens that a deaf kid is unable to just pick up a spoken language. Even a moderate hearing loss is enough to bar a person from accessing a *lot* of language opportunities. A deaf kid's eyes and hands work better than their ears, so work to their strengths, eh?

 

Signed English, *sigh.* Signed English is so BORING to watch! When I was learning Auslan they stuck on a video of a well known children's story, one we'd all heard in English a million times. The vid then showed the story told in Signed English, where we almost fell asleep, then in Auslan, which woke us all back up even though it was a repeat of the same story. Signed English is not a language, it is a code. Signed languages and spoken languages have the same input rate for the reciever, despite the fact that they don't directly translate. Signed English, on the other hand, has a much higher input rate, so is harder work both to produce and receive. And did I say it is BORING? ;) It doesn't have the intonation of spoken English, nor the classifiers and other interesting grammatical features of a signed language. It kind of makes you feel you are back in year 10 maths class with a monotone teacher. That's when it is used properly, anyway!

Now, whether Signed English is the best way to teach English certainly is up for debate. One of the schools in our state teaches in Signed English and produces very well educated deaf girls. Obviously it can work well. I would argue, however, that using a real signed language as the language of instruction, as they do in Sweden, is more effective; and teaching the dominant language of the place via literacy is better use of time. I think there is too much focus on speech with deaf kids. Sure, why not learn to speak if it's not too difficult. If it is, they are better off learning to read and write. It's their literacy skills, not their speech that either get them into uni, or condemn them to a life on social security or working in a supermarket. I know so many deaf who can speak perfectly well, but don't because it makes their life harder! (And they have PhD's!)

 

I think it's a mistake to call the use of signed languages an educational fad. Or I would like it to be a mistake anyway! If you know your deaf history (and there's no reason why you should, lol!) deaf education levels plummeted during the oralist years. They finished school better educated back when deaf schools were being run by deaf teachers, using signed languages; before oralism and manually coded English. Some of the kids brought up orally came out alright. Alright is a relative term, of course. However, it was a case of "one size doesn't fit most." If I had a deaf kid, I would not be impressed with an education that churned out a kid who could speak, but had nothing much to speak about because the focus of the education was speech production, not actually learning content. I don't know about residential schools in the US, but the deaf school here in our state has a lousy reputation. I sure wouldn't send my child there. There's a few reasons though. Part is that the extra special needs kids are sent there, along with the kids who are only deaf. Part is because most of the teachers are not native signers and a fair few don't sign at all (my dh was turned down for a job there in favour of a woman who couldn't sign) and part is the loooowww expectations. They're deaf, so they can't do what hearing kids can do. Stupid attitude, because they are deaf, not intellectually impaired. Stupid because on the same campus was the course I was doing, where three of the four teachers had PhD's or were working on them, and the other had his Masters and was to start his PhD in two years time.

 

Anyway, if you have a deaf child, move to Sweden! Or homeschool them, hehehe.

 

Did I say "pet topic?" :blush5:

 

Rosie

[Merry]

other than the three R's and speech so I was bored silly all the way through. And yes, signed English is ugly and boring and just a code. Not a real language. The deaf people do miss out on a lot of part of the language that makes them truly human beings. What I've found though is that for most deaf people, and maybe myself included, if we stay with ASL, we tend to forget our English. Spoken languages are not natural to us, as you know. It's different for hearing people who can switch back and forth between two spoken languages in an immersion situation. Deaf people have to switch between two different modes as well as different languages. I sure wish that somebody would come up with a real signed language that resembles English. As it is, ASL is more like the French in grammar. I suppose that the signed Swedish that the kids use is like spoken Swedish in grammar? That's wonderful! There are a few pretty good residential schools in the U.S. My dh went to one years ago and where signed English was used in the classroom but the kids still got quite a good education and used ASL in their free time. And yes, you're right. If the schools use mostly hearing teachers that don't sign well, the education suffers. It's their attitude toward the deaf children that makes them not want to bother with being skillful in signing in order to communicate with the deaf children well.

[Rosie_0801]

What I've found though is that for most deaf people, and maybe myself included, if we stay with ASL, we tend to forget our English. Spoken languages are not natural to us, as you know. It's different for hearing people who can switch back and forth between two spoken languages in an immersion situation. Deaf people have to switch between two different modes as well as different languages.

 

That's quite interesting. I've never had anyone tell me that before. I guess that's because most of the deafies I know are culturally hard of hearing rather than culturally deaf. I guess that backs up what we were both saying about the importance of being literate in English.

 

I sure wish that somebody would come up with a real signed language that resembles English.

First, what would it achieve? Second, you can't because visual languages don't work like auditory languages. Maybe you need a bit more Signing Pride, lol. Dh has a shirt saying "I can't hear you, please sign louder." He wears it to his parents place (anti deaf despite three of the four family members wearing hearing aides) but they don't get the joke.

 

As it is, ASL is more like the French in grammar. I suppose that the signed Swedish that the kids use is like spoken Swedish in grammar?

Nope. Sorry, I should have called it Swedish Sign Language; it's not an artificial creation like Signed English. It has different grammar to spoken Swedish. Just like Auslan has different grammar to spoken English. Despite that, those Swedish kids come out trilingual. Makes you wonder why we aren't doing what they do, huh?

 

If the schools use mostly hearing teachers that don't sign well, the education suffers. It's their attitude toward the deaf children that makes them not want to bother with being skillful in signing in order to communicate with the deaf children well.

You've got to wonder why people who can't sign and think deaf kids can't achieve want to work with them. I met a woman who was told her deaf daughter wouldn't learn to read. Can you believe that? My dh worked at the deaf school for a while and was told by one of the students that Auslan didn't have grammar. Sad huh?

 

Rosie

[cathmom]

So what is cued speech then, if you don't mind me asking?

[Merry]

as one of the posters said, if the child does not become proficient in any one language because of the parents speaking to him in broken English and not in their own language, then he does not reach his fullest potential in literacy. I think the deaf children are in the same situation if their parents don't sign properly to them especially if the children don't become proficient in reading for the English in addition to some speech therapy. Then they don't develop either language fully. If that's what the doctor was talking about to the original poster, then he's correct. Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed that the Swedish sign language is not really like spoken Swedish but I'm not surprised. And I used the wrong word, mode, I think. I should have said different parts of the brain. It's hard to switch back and forth between the part of the brain that processes spatial information and the part that processes verbal information. I get confused if I try to do that as I'm sure the other deaf people do too which is why they don't tend to hold on firmly to both ASL and spoken language at the same time. We can but it's hard. It's really neat to talk to someone who understands.

[stripe]

I'm really enjoying reading about sign language. (As a child, I was really fascinated by sign language but never learned more than a few words.) I think that for any sort of bilingualism, it would be important to have a good grasp of both of them -- being able to speak no language well is not being bilingual!, and keeping them up and expanding understanding as one grows and moves to different situations, rather than being stagnant and/or starting to forget one of the languages.

 

I would imagine with signed languages, because they require physical movement, that it would be even more important to keep them up to remain comfortable and fluent.

 

Do signed languages use the same part of the brain as spoken ones?

 

Are there many people who know different signed languages (American, French, Australian, etc) -- what is it like for two signed language users who know different versions to communicate?

[Rosie_0801]

So what is cued speech then, if you don't mind me asking?

 

Oralism with some hand movements next to the mouth to distinguish between the different phonemes. English is only about 30% visible on the lips, so lipreading isn't easy and requires a lot of guesswork. Cued speech is an improvement on strict oralism, I guess. It gives the kid a chance. Problem is that if you are going to go to the trouble of becoming proficient in it, you might as well have learned to sign. No one uses cued speech in the real world, and any kid who needs that support to speech isn't going to be hearing any better by the time they finish school. They might have better English than if their education had been strictly oral, but they still can't hear any better so how much good is it? Cued speech has never been big in Australia so I don't know anyone with personal experience. I would imagine that any graduate is going to nick off and learn to sign as soon as they are independent like most of my hard of hearing buddies who grew up oral or signed English.

 

Anyway, I'm a bit disappointed that the Swedish sign language is not really like spoken Swedish but I'm not surprised. And I used the wrong word, mode, I think. I should have said different parts of the brain. It's hard to switch back and forth between the part of the brain that processes spatial information and the part that processes verbal information. I get confused if I try to do that as I'm sure the other deaf people do too which is why they don't tend to hold on firmly to both ASL and spoken language at the same time. We can but it's hard. It's really neat to talk to someone who understands.

 

To be honest, I would be surprised if a natural sign language did have the same grammar as a spoken language! They are completely different modes of communication and evolve independently of each other. Well, that's not quite true, signed languages tend to be influenced by the spoken language to some degree.

My hubby also has trouble switching between Auslan and English, which I find kind of odd. Maybe it's because he has to put so much effort into listening that there's no effort left for looking unless he switches gears? I don't know. I don't have the problem, but my eyes and ears are both working all the time. You don't actually use different parts of the brain for each language. The language areas of the brain store language, whichever language. Maybe the production areas differ because one is using hands and the other isn't? I'm not sure. I do know that grammar and vocab are both stored in the same place regardless of what language you use/know. I studied this stuff in linguistics so interesting!

 

I would imagine with signed languages, because they require physical movement, that it would be even more important to keep them up to remain comfortable and fluent.

 

Not really. It's the same as any other language. If you don't use it, you start forgetting vocab, particularly the signs that don't translate into English properly. It's not really the physical movement that you need to keep up to stay fluent. I don't know any other spoken languages, but I would assume forgetting how to produce signs fluently would be the same as getting rusty on phonemes that exist in a spoken language other than English. Like rolling r's or using Chinese intonations or whatever. I don't know. I'm making that up but I guess that's how it would be. Fluency in some ways, is the same in any language. For example, I have a stutter. That means I stutter in both English and Auslan. A person who speaks slowly will signs slowly too. Etc.

 

Are there many people who know different signed languages (American, French, Australian, etc) -- what is it like for two signed language users who know different versions to communicate?

Not many people know different signed languages. First, why would they need to? Second, who would teach them? Deaf who travel a lot tend to pick up some ASL. I don't imagine American Deaf would have much need to pick up anything other than British fingerspelling if they went abroad, but I'm not an American Deaf person, so I don't know. There is an "international sign language" which isn't a language at all, more a pidgin esperanto, completely manufactured and only suitable for basic conversation. You can't use it to discuss abstract topics and you would only know any of that if you'd been specifically taught, because no one uses it natively. We did a 10 hour subject when I was at tafe, that's all. Deaf users of different signed languages tend to have few problems communicating, because they are used to communicating visually. They will drop many of their signs, and use more classifiers and mime instead. My dh can follow most of an ASL conversation. I can get the general gist of it because it is so initialised, which provides morphological hints and we use a lot of ASL borrowed signs in Auslan. Dh is faster at reading American fingespelling than I am, which gives him an advantage.

 

Rosie

Edited May 3, 2009 by Rosie_0801

[stripe]

You don't actually use different parts of the brain for each language. The language areas of the brain store language, whichever language. Maybe the production areas differ because one is using hands and the other isn't? I'm not sure.

 

Yes, this is what I was curious about. It's just so interesting. Being bilingual itself is so interesting!

[Friederike in Persia]

Rosie, or anybody else, how much would be involved if I'd try and teach my deaf Tajik neighbour to read? She's about 40 and has had a super tough life. I think she would be interested, but I'm not sure if there is a chance of succeeding.

[Storm Bay]

Interesting. My bilingual dad became a surgeon, and his bilingual brother has a Ph.D. & ran a research lab for about 30 years before becoming a dean of science. Guess it hurt them, eh? Then, of course, how about my mother, who, along with her parents, was biliingual growing up, and my dad's parents who, once they came here were fluent in 3 languages (reading, writing, speaking.)

 

Even with hearing loss, this shouldn't be a problem. I wonder where this MD got his "facts" from. Certainly there are dc raised with 2 languages at once that take longer to speak, but they understand all and in the end do very well.

[Rosie_0801]

Rosie, or anybody else, how much would be involved if I'd try and teach my deaf Tajik neighbour to read? She's about 40 and has had a super tough life. I think she would be interested, but I'm not sure if there is a chance of succeeding.

 

 

It's certainly possible, otherwise there'd be no literate deaf people in the world. I'm not really sure how to go about it though. My dh was late deafened so he's never run into that particular issue. Hypothesising, I've thought that teaching reading via fingerspelling would be the best way if the person was too deaf for phonics. How does your neighbour usually communicate?

 

There are books on amazon about teaching literacy to deaf kids. Maybe some of them would provide useful info for you. I don't know. I've not seen any IRL.

 

A worthy goal indeed.

 

Rosie

[VanessaS]

What about entire countries where the population is multilingual?

 

Sometimes even doctors (and other "professionals") say and do stupid things. They're just people, too. I've got some horror stories for you...

 

Anyway, just make sure that they're proficient in at least one language. Any additional languages are a plus. It takes a few years for the kids to catch up speech-wise sometimes but they eventually do.

[stripe]

I don't understand why people give advice when they don't know what they're talking about. Have I mentioned my story about the pediatrician who seemed to be supportive of bilingualism but then -- in English -- lectured my husband (with a straight face) to tell the kids he doesn't know any English.