Tri Lingualism and Speech Delay

[muffkitt]

My boy couldn't say many words at 24 months and we had his hearing tested (it was fine), and then had been assessed by a speech therapist. It was found that he was delayed in speech by about 1 year and so he started sessions.

He was walking as early as 9 months and without aid by 10 months. He is about 3.5 years now and has improved but I think he is still somewhat behind. Many a times I think parents tend to worry too much and people have always said boys are slower than girls in speech, and they are 95% of the time correct. But there are times when you just have that gut feeling and this is when you should have your child tested. It's better to address any problem early. If all is fine, the there's no worries.

 

[lynn cheung]

I think speech delay is not caused by learning more than 1 language.

I know some children who are learning ONE language only:
a cousin's friend's son doesn't talk till he is over 3 years old
my husband's nephew doesn't even talk till now and he's already 2 years old
my nephew doesn't talk till he's over 2.5 years old
my niece doesn't talk till she's over 1.5 years old.

So if everything's ok, don't worry. Keep on talking to your child.

 

[paul prengel]

Tri-Lingualism

Hi

Tri-Lingualism - what a word - enough to scare off any kid

seriously - my first 3 kids were raised bi-lingual German-English no problems, all are doing fine, the youngest first went to US schools, in 2nd grade we received the national test results and she came in in the bottom 10th percentile - a big scare for us as we could not detect any intellectual deficiencies. We transferred her to a German elementary school. Later she had straight A's throughout high school and college both in the US and is now in her last year of med school.

My newest child is 22 months and just now is learning some words like apple and banana only yesterday. He is being raised tri-lingual (English-German, Chinese). He did say by by at about 14 months and he has his very own language as he babbles his own words all the time. Physically he is tops and has great control of his body -except going potty yet.

Babys learn at their own pace, some early some late. The more a parent sees that as a problem the more that is a problem -for the child. To consult a speech therapist for a 20 month old seems to be overdoing it - pity the child for any other perceived problem he/she might have. The best parents are no guarantee for a happy kid. Kids are tough - they survive all kinds kind of parents - my kids survived even my parenting.

Cheers

Paul