speech delay and bilingual education

[Mary Kastamoula]

Dear Dr. Beate,

it seems to me there is more than a language delay here! And there are many questions to consider.

1) Who has diagnosed the general cognitive and motor delay of the child? Was the child seen by a child psychiatrist/psychologist or a peadiatrician? This is important in evaluating language development. Is the language delay part of a general delay or is the delay specific to language skills?

2) The point about checking hearing is very valid and part of a routine when investigating language delay.

3) What is the child's play skills? Are they age appropriate?

4) How is the child communicating with siblings? In which language? What about the father?

I agree with the suggestion that the mother should use her own language to communicate with the child and not a language she does possess well. Or otherwise, if the mother cannot control input from greek relatives she should at least use her own language consistently.

I think is is not only a matter of what the mother will do. I recommend a general assessment of the child's cognitive and play skills by a good child psychologist and a visit to another speech and language therapist for a second opinion. This should be possible if the family lives in Athens.

Mary Kastamoula
Speech and Language Therapist
Greece
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/info-childes/attachments/20011122/02376194/attachment.htm>