May 8, 2008
One thing we never really considered when we moved to France was how our children would cope with growing up in a bilingual environment. With hardly a sentence of French between us, let alone any first hand experience of bilingualism, we just assumed that their language skills would develop as normal - but in two languages.
The advantages of being bilingual, in terms of cognitive development are well documented, however, what is not well documented is the language development process/milestones that lead to bilingualism. So when our two year old turned silent … we started to worry.
Endless searches on the web revealed all sorts of information that was predominantly based upon a parental-language relationship (i.e. mum speaking one language, dad speaking another). Our immigrant situation - one language at home, another language outside - did not seem to get a look in. So we decided to take medical advice, and the Doctor referred us to a (monolingual French speaking) speech therapist - who simply shrugged and admitted that she had no idea as to why junior wasn’t talking. [All the same she'd like to see him every week for the next six months!]
What we, and the none-too-bright therapist, didn’t realise was that normal speech development milestones for a monolingual child do not apply for bilingual children. According to an American study, which we finally found on the NCELA website, there is a phase that bilingual children go through:
“When everyone around the child is speaking a different language, there are only two options: to speak the language they already know, or to stop speaking entirely.”
After almost a year of silence our worries are finally over; and now at three years old, our son is finally talking again, and his language skills (in both French and English) are developing by the day. All we have to worry about now is him turning into a smart-alec-clever-clogs before he reaches maturity.
I have extracted some of the more interesting parts of the NCELA study for you to read here (if you’re interested).
May 9th, 2008 at 4:05
As a speech and language therapist myself, I have to comment on your statement that “normal speech development milestones for a monolingual child do not apply for bilingual children”. That is not technically true: if a child learns 2 languages from birth, the developmental stages should be the same in each language. That is, for a bilingual child, the milestones are reached at approximately the same time in BOTH languages as they would be reached by a monolingual child in their ONLY language. The only exceptions are when a child has a language disorder or when they have more exposure to one language than to the other.
With that said, your child was not learning both languages from birth. Your therapist should probably have picked up on the normalcy of the silent period when suddenly a new language was presented. But in my experience working in the schools (in an area where many children have no exposure to English before full-time English school) there are loads of children who never go through the silent period. It depends on personality… those reckless risk-takers have an advantage in this regard because they will dive in and speak the language, even with wonky grammar.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:23
The report concurs with both our experiences: “Some children go through a prolonged nonverbal stage, sometimes lasting for a year or more, whereas other children pass through this stage so quickly they seem to have rejected this strategy altogether.” Which would suggest that the milestones themselves are somewhat flexible.
But you are right - he wasn’t learning two languages from birth, in fact he was introduced to French at six months, and only when he began at the halte garderie (when he was two) did he need to start speaking it. So he went silent.
It was only this report (which we found approximately a year too late) that suggested his silence was in any way normal.
The fact is that this report shows that there are four distinct types of pre-school bilingualism. The type you are experiencing appears to be that of type 3 or 4. We put our particular experience down to type 2 (according to Tabors and Snow).
i.e. rather than dealing with a disorder, or an unbalanced exposure to one language or the other, we were simply dealing with a lack of motivation.
(and I’m sure it will be the same story when he becomes a teenager!)
May 10th, 2008 at 18:15
As another speechie, I agree with KCampbell! I have also worked in schools where there are many children with no exposure to English before they start and who subsequently go through as ’silent period’. Your speech therapist should really have known about that!
She should also have considered the other reasons that a child might lose language skills (including autism - not that I’m saying your child is autistic, of course!).
Did you go and see Madame l’Orthophoniste every week for 6 months in the end? If so, I would love to know what kind of therapy she did.
By the way, I have just discovered your blog via Mya (Missing you already) so will now check out a few more of your posts!
All the best!
May 11th, 2008 at 22:10
Nice blog by the way.
Don’t worry about the delays. Many children who grow up in multilingual environments decide to take a little extra time to “get things straight in their heads” before they start to speak. It is not uncommon for them to be a little late with starting to speak. Here in the Alsace, this is a known phenomenon! Actually, it’s a good sign as it means they truly have integrated 2 distict languages before starting to use them. Note, however, that as you are concerned about their language skills and and the delay in their starting to speak, you transmit your “angoisses/angst” and this results in a delay too. Doctors do not like to say this as they fear losing a customer.
Be careful with the term “bilingual” though, this is not a simple word. No one is truly bilingual, we all have a mother tongue. Catalans who have gone out of their way to raise a child truly bilingual Spanish/Catalan discovered that their child’s choice of first friend at nursrey school and the language they chose to converse in tipped the subtle balance between mother tongue and second language whist still in a linguistically formative age - this was sometimes a disappointment to the parents!
May 12th, 2008 at 8:20
Stratford Girl & K Campbell - when you say ’school’ what age groups are you talking about - 2 and 3 year-olds, as in our experience? Or 5 and 6 year-olds?
Because I don’t think you can truly compare the two age groups in terms of simultaneous language development.
We decided to give the therapist the boot, and simply try to be less anxious about the whole thing. As canukh suggests, our own angst and willingness to humour non-verbal communication may have been equally to blame for the slow development.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:12
Hi
This is a really interesting topic. We moved to Strasbourg 2 years ago (I am a Rostbif and my girlfriend a Breton). We are considering having kids here and our friends have one due. I sent them the link to this blog!
We have discussed this topic before between friends and heard about this ’silent’ period…or the refusal to speak one of the two languages. Only time will tell eh!
Cheerio
Ritchie Huxley
May 20th, 2008 at 21:30
I suppose I was referring to ANY child who has previously been exposed solely to one language and then is put in an environment where they suddenly hear an unfamiliar language. That can be children of any age, really, but is most common in children starting nursery (3 or 4) and school (4 or 5).
As an aside, there is also a phenomenon known as ’subtractive bilingualism’, which is where a child is exposed to a new language and then subsequently loses their first language as everyone stops speaking their first langauge to them. This is really bad for language development, as effectively they are starting from the beginning again (sort of).
In spite of tons of research saying that people should speak to their child in the language(s) they are best at when they move to a new country, you’d be surprised how many people stop speaking their own language and start speaking the language of country they have moved to. This can be because they perceive the language of the country to have higher status, or (wrongly) believe that having two languages will slow the child down/ confuse them somehow when they start school.
For example, I recently saw a family who had stopped speaking Lingala to their children and started using English instead. The parents were actually really rubbish at English so the child got a really dodgy language model at home. He also had a language disorder on top of everything else so it was a real nightmare and his language development was really slowed by the fact that his Lingala input ceased completely.
I am waffling… I’m glad that things have worked out OK for your son in the end.
June 5th, 2008 at 12:49
Very interesting, thanks for the discussion!
June 5th, 2008 at 13:09
The problem we have now is that our son is speaking all the time - though it is impossible to understand 90% of what he is saying.
Things have been complicated by the introduction of German/Alsatian into his vocabulary - and now he appears to be switching between three languages!
We are however about to spend a month in the UK, where he’ll be exposed to just one language for the first time in his life. My mother owns a playgroup too - so he’ll get to rub shoulders with some proper Anglophone children five days a week. We have high hopes, but who knows, every child is different.
June 18th, 2008 at 15:10
Hi,
I am interested in this topic as well. I am an american living in Brazil. I have a 9 year old daughter and a 22 month old daughter. We moved here close to two years ago. My (then) seven year old who was fluent and at ease with English did not speak Port. not even one word for 6 months or so. We feel that the ’school’ environment was a little overwhelming. What helped the most was when she made a friend of a neighbor girl. They played a lot together spending hours in the park and in their rooms playing dolls. Having this ‘non threatening’ environment plus tons of ‘real’ activities for her to associate the words with was great. After this her portuguese began to improve and now, two years later she is fluent, scoring above her class averages in a brazilian school, and the most interesting thing is that she speaks without an accent. No one believes she is not brazilian. Our American friends whose kids only attend school but do not have brazilian ‘friends’ to play with have a much harder time. Our baby on the other hand is speaking a quite interesting mix of Port. and Eng. She will say, “Eu quero a cookie.” (I want a cookie) I have no idea how this will resolve. We speak English at home and she goes to a preschool for 3 hours a day and hear Port. She is not shy in either language and tends to choose the word she likes ‘best’ to use for something. For example she says “agua” not “water” but “cookie” not ” bolacha”. Her animals are also a mixture. Another funny point. My oldest daughter is using portuguese structures in her English (which is grammatically wrong) and making up English words that do not exist by trying to make a literal translation from Portuguese. My husband is Argentinian but always speaks English at home. His English has its own idiosyncrasies that now have even rubbed off on me! It was great to hear the stories of someone raising a bilingual child who is mixing everything up! I suppose it sorts itself eventually…but I wonder…
Bye for now ,
Ash
July 27th, 2008 at 21:35
I am living in Spain and my daughter 25months goes to nursery- she has for about nine months- interesting to hear in last post , chooses to use the words she likes best- zumos for juice- agua not water and gracias not thanks- I am not worried about it all working out- but know in the future will have to work on her English- I just need to make sure I am fluent before she is !
September 9th, 2008 at 18:58
Hi!
I am living in Michigan-US. My husband and I are Albanians. We have a 2 1/2 year old son. At home we speak strictlly Albanian, but he also goes to the day care 5 days a week. He is saying about 50 words. He can understand both languages, but he is not speaking either one of them, except words here and there. I started to worry, even though i talked to a speach therapist, and she recomended me to hold done a little longer, and see what will it happen. Any other suggestion!?
September 10th, 2008 at 8:22
Hi Antoneta,
The thing that worked best for us was spending a month in the UK - and sending him to a local playgroup five days a week. This helped him to recognise a ‘value’ in speaking English (the language of his strange parents), and demonstrated that other children actually speak it too.
Since then his language, certainly in English, has progressed massively. How his French compares I have no idea - but at least we can communicate with him now.
We did this when he was 3 years and three months. The first time he said ‘Mummy’ was shortly after he turned three.
So, if you can spend some quality time in Albania in the next six months - I am sure it will help speed things along.