Fwd: China Adopt & Delayed Speech

[Lynn Santelmann]

This spring I posted a query from a colleague who was concerned that her
2-year-old daughter from China was not saying much at all. We received many
helpful responses from people on the list-serve, and so I thought I would
share with you (with her permission) this update that I just received. It's
nice to know that the information we provided was helpful and reassuring.

Lynn Santelmann

>From: "Cheyenne Chapman" <cheyenne at owt.org>
>To: "Lynn Santelmann" <santelmannl at pdx.edu>
>Subject: China Adopt & Delayed Speech
>Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:57:22 -0700
>
>Lynn - I wanted to touch base with you to let you know how Liandra is doing.
>I contacted you about six months ago, when Liandra was about two years old,
>with questions about when internationally adopted children start to talk. I
>would like to thank you and all of your colleagues who responded to my
>inquiry. The information was interesting, helpful and for the most part
>reassuring - and there certainly were a variety of views on this topic.
>
>Now that Liandra is two and a half, her expressive language has blossomed -
>her vocabulary is soaring (one day nothing, and over the course of about
>three days - counting from one to ten, naming half a dozen letters of the
>alphabet, calling out several colors); she is using two word phrases
>including nouns and verbs and more (baby and mama; baby walking, mama
>walking); and she is singing goodly portions of the alphabet song, being
>especially fond of the 'now I know my abc's' part). After about a week of
>using both English and Mandarin for numbers one through ten, she has settled
>on English - and counts everything in sight.
>
>After first contacting you, I took Liandra to an audiologist, and her
>hearing tested normally. I also spoke with a speech therapist over the
>phone, who asked quite a few diagnostic type questions (can she chew
>normally, what sounds can she say, etc.) and recommended I wait a few weeks
>before scheduling a session - everything sounded normal except for the
>expressive language part of her development. The speech therapist also
>shared a couple of helpful suggestions - talk to her a lot with brief,
>descriptive and repetitive phrases; don't ask her questions all the time
>(what's that? can you say? Once I started listening to myself and others, I
>realized that we were bombarding Liandra with questions rather than simply
>telling her about the world).
>
>The speech therapist recommended thinking about the process as one of just
>"putting language in" - and not trying to "get words back out." She noted
>that even little children can have "performance anxiety." I think this might
>have been true - several times during Liandra's "quiet" period of many weeks
>she engaged in extensive 'conversations' with other babbling wobblers; I
>found her more than once on the back porch 'lecturing' the dog Snugglebunny
>at great length (the dog appeared quite attentive and even appreciative, and
>didn't ask any questions); sometimes she 'talked' to herself when she was
>playing alone in her room - all the while speaking hardly a word to me or
>other adults (except "whaddat?" and "dit", apparently her all-purpose naming
>word for many weeks).
>
>Several people wrote about children in circumstances similar to my daughter,
>and noted that such children seem to go through a "quiet time" - they may be
>absorbing everything and processing it internally, but not expressing much
>through the spoken word. I have wondered whether Liandra might have been
>thinking about the advisibility of starting to speak - after all, the first
>time she started to talk, at the age of 16 months in an orphanage in China,
>she was suddenly whisked away into an entirely unfamiliar world where
>everything sounded entirely different and nothing made sense. In any case,
>Liandra's "quiet time" has definitely ended; the transition to expressive
>language was dramatically sudden; and I am delighted to find myself
>wondering sometimes whether she will ever quiet down.
>
>I have spoken with quite a few other adoptive families and have found that
>quite a few parents have questions similar to mine, though every child and
>family is different of course. In any event I wanted to thank you and your
>colleagues for sharing information with me and helping us  through this part
>of Liandra's growth and development, and in return share our experience with
>you. Thanks again.
>
>Cheyenne Chapman
>Development Director
>Oregon Water Trust
>111 SW Naito Parkway, Ste. 404
>Portland, OR  97204
>phone (503) 227-4464
>fax (503) 226-3480
>email cheyenne at owt.org
>
>visit our website at www.owt.org

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Lynn Santelmann
Assistant Professor
Department of Applied Linguistics
Portland State University
P.O. Box 751
Portland, OR 97201-0751
Phone: 503-725-4140
Fax: 503-725-4139
e-mail: santelmannl at pdx.edu (last name + first initial)
web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls
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