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<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>dear all,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>first, I want to thank you all for your
contributions to my question if one language should be dropped if a child is
speech delayed. My friend was very desperate when she asked me for help but all
of your contibutions have helped her to come over this crisis and she asked me
to forward a mail to you as well:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>I want to thank you all very much for
your mails. I did'nt expect so much interest, although I know, that there are a
lot of children with this problem.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>Indeed Your thoughts are very important
for me. They help me not only in the discussions with the speach-therapist
and teachers. The main thing for me is to know that my son gets the support
he needs and that I do the best to help him. Living on a greek island is not
easy if you have a problem like we have because there is no choice. We have to
be happy that there is a speach-therapist at all!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>After all I have to say that my son is
doing very well in the therapy and even the therapist admits, that he makes
progress in big steps. She stopped critizising, and she says now, that you can
see the difference between children, where nobody helps at home and children
with support. I take this as a compliment, but I didn't tell her, that I do
allmost all exercises in german. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>Again I thank you very much for your
interest and your support.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>Sincerly </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>Petra Scheiblich-Raftopoulos
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">And here a summary of the
responses:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Several people suggested a hearing test as
hearing problems are often the cause of speech delay. I forgot to mention in my
earlier mail that the boy had been tested and his hearing was o.k. He will have
a thorough evaluation of all of his delays early next year (the waiting lists
are long).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">1. Anne Kolatsis gave a reference which discusses early
bilingual development: Genesee, F. (1989) Early bilingual development: one
language or two?, <I>Journal of Child Language</I>, 16, 1,
161-179.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">2. Madalena Cruz-Ferreira gave her experiences
of raising her trilingual kids and made a very good point: " Just to say that
teachers, other adults and peers alike, all of them monolingual, *will*
blame multilingualism on whatever problems a child may happen to develop. ...
Your friend *will* have a huge problem eventually, when she finds that by
switching over to another language she'll have lost precious contact with her
child."<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">3. Christiane Dietrich wrote: "there is NO
evidence that children that are brought up bilingually are more prone to
developing speech and language problems and it is highly unlikey to be the cause
of your child's problems. Although sometimes parent-child interaction therapy is
used as part of the therapy programme when working with children with delay, the
reason for this is not that the parent's behaviour is causing the problem but
there are sometimes changes that can be made that are beneficial for he child's
improvment such as following the child's lead (e.g. frequently commenting on
things that the child is already paying attention
to)."<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">4. Susanne Dopke pointed out: "Strategies learned
in one language can certainly be transferred to another and that is how the
speech pathologist should handle it. Countries who have guidelines for speech
pathologists working with culturally and linguistically diverse clients advise
exactly that (eg. US, GB, Australia) The only consession I would make to the
speech pathologist is that I would enlist the father's or another Greek carer's
support to also implement the stratgies into the Greek input on a daily basis.
The more helpful input a child with difficulties gets the better, and if a
family wants their child to be bilingual that would ideally happen in both
languages."<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">5. Christiane Hofbauer mentioned: "... I had indirectly
to do with some children where the parents tried to educate their children
monolingually in a foreign, not fluently spoken language. This caused problems
in all of the children. So, in my opinion, the mother NEVER should try to speak
only Greek with her son, if her Greek is not very good (besides the fact that a
restricted communication with a child, which isn't very communicative, shouldn't
help at all.)</SPAN><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">6. Annick De Houwer advised the mother to NOT give up
speaking the language she usually speaks with her child and feels comfortable
with as here is absolutely no evidence that shows that this would help; on the
contrary, there are many (unpublished, anecdotal, but still!!) reports that when
mothers stop talking their usual language to their child in pre-school age, some
children get very upset and even stop speaking altogether for a while. This
issue (and others) are taken up in her brief article, 'Two or More
Languages in Early Childhood: Some General Points and Practical
Recommendations', first published in AILA News and since 1999 available through
the website of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics at <A
href="http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/earlychild.html">http://www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/earlychild.html</A>
.</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">7. Sharon Armon-Lotem wrote: "There is no research, that
I know of, that shows any relations betweeen the two. It is traditionally
assumed that bilingualism is good for you if you have no language problems
(gives you a cognitive advantage, etc.). One thing is clear. Bilingualism is not
a reason for language impairement (which have a yet unknown neurological
source), though some say it causes language delay in some children. ... We want
to try and see what efffect bilingualism has on language impairment). It will be
a few years before we can say something definite. But your friend should
trust her own judgement on this issue, though she might have to fight for
it."<BR><BR>8. Annabelle David worte: "Stopping to speak one language to a child
will certainly not do any good. I have been through many testimony of parents of
children in that situation. Most speech therapist are not trained to deal with
bilingual children. So the only thing that can go wrong for them is what they
don't know about: bilingualism. Your friend really should talk to somebody who
knows about bilingualism. Not any other person."<BR><BR></SPAN><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman">9. Fred Genesee
as well stressed that there seems to be a widespread belief among speech
and language therapists, not all, that bilingual acquisition poses additional
challenges to children with language and other impairments. It is not clear
where this belief comes from because, in fact, there is not a lot of evidence on
children with language impairment who are raised bilingually. He goes on
saying: "However, the evidence that does exist does not support the
recommendation to drop one of the languages. Johanne Paradis, Martha Crago and I
have completed a study of French-English bilingual children with SLI (using
age-matched and mlu-matched controls; monolingual and bilingual). We found that
the impairment of the bilingual children was of the same nature generally as
that of monolingual children with SLI and, furthermore, it did not differ in
severity from that of monolingual children with SLI. In short, there was no
evidence from our study that bilingual exposure altered the nature or severity
of these children's impairment. In other words, it did not appear that their
exposure to two languages was playing a causal role in their impairment. <BR>As
well, when one looks at the research on normal children who are raised
bilingually, there is the clear indication that dual language acquisition is
fundamentally the same as monolingual acquisition with the necessary proviso
that differences in the learning environments of bilingual children can impact
their language acquisition accordingly. Thus, children who have inconsistent or
impoverished exposure in one of their two languages are likely to exhibit poorer
development in that language than in the other. In other words, the research on
normal bilingual acquisition indicates that the language faculty is capable of
learning two languages as well as one, other things being equal. This would lead
me to believe that language impairment in bilingual children is not likely to be
relieved by dropping one of the languages; impaired children are likely to
continue to exhibit problems in the remaining language. My reading of the
research suggests to me that language impairment is not specific to one or two
languages but is fundamental to any and all languages that impaired children
learn. <BR>Of course, it is dangerous and ill-advised to make specific
recommendations about indivdual children without detailed information about them
and their social environments. Children are all different and the circumstances
in which they learn and use their languages is different. The social and
personal fallout that comes from using two languages (or only one) must also be
considered seriously. And clearly we have a lot more to learn about
bilingual language impairment -- it is probably not a unitary construct and we
have only just begun to understand even one form of it. <BR>As general
rule it seems to me that in order to justify dropping one language in the case
of a child who is growing up bilingual there should be well documented evidence
of what the language difficulty is and specific expectations about how changing
his life by dropping a language will resolve his difficulties. There are
attendant problems for children when their lives are altered by simply dropping
a language." <BR><BR>10. Miquel Serra i Raventoswrote: "Although here in
Catalunya the bilingual situation is quite peculiar (spanish and catalan are two
roman languages that share many basic sintactic rules and also the culture) we
have a very long experience with SLI children, and other patologies, in this
situation (spanish as family language, school in catalan; TV, garden and street
languages depending on the area) and I suscribe absolutely what Annick and Fred
have said. My comments do not mean that the communication and language
habilities (an other as Fred suggests) of this child should not be well planned
in case they will remain in Greece: for example working mainly in Greek
comprehension and very little in German production, and working it in function
of learning "language" (not German): For exemple, omissions of weak initial
syllables, articles, prepositions and pronouns, if not major categories that for
sure he is still not mastering. According to my experience and data I would
suggest to work more in this error types than in any other. In this case, as in
other, it is more important to communicate a lot and in the most clear and
tunned but challenging way to the child than do it in one or an other
language.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">11. <FONT size=2>Mary Kastamoula recommended 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 as
</FONT><FONT size=2>it seemed to her that there is more than a language delay
here. Questions to consider are:</FONT></SPAN><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"></FONT><FONT size=2><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">1)
Is the language delay part of a general delay or is the delay specific to
language skills?<BR></FONT></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>2) The
point about checking hearing is very valid and part of a routine when
investigating language delay.<BR></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=2>3)
What is the child's play skills? Are they age appropriate?<BR></FONT><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=2>4) How is the child communicating with siblings?
In which language? What about the father?<BR></FONT><FONT size=2><FONT
face="Times New Roman">She went on saying that she agrees with the
suggestion that the mother should use her own language to communicate with the
child and not a language she does not possess well. Or otherwise, if the mother
cannot control input from greek relatives she should at least use her own
language consistently.<BR><FONT size=2></FONT><FONT
face="Times New Roman">She understands what the situation is in a greek
island where the specialists and the resources are not always there. It is an
issue that there is not a bilingual therapist who could handle the family's
bilingual situation and if the therapist is greek then therapy and
generalisation unavoidably will be in greek. It would be a good idea for the
future that the child is assessed by a bilingual therapist.There are many greek
speech and language therapists trained in Germany. </FONT></FONT><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=2>In the present case may be the father could be
more involved as greek is his language and help witht the exercises so that the
mother can feel that she can use german with the child. Whatever they decide in
cooperation with their therapist, consistency of the speakers is important so
that the child can associate a language with a speaker e.g. mother german,
father greek.</FONT></P>
<DIV></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman">12. Elaine Silliman as well stressed
the importance of an audiological evaluation as an essential first step. She
goes on saying that one would hope that speech-language pathologists would not
attribute a language learning problem of this kind to a child's bilingual
education. As Fred Genesee points out, if a child has a language impairment,
that impairment will be found in both languages that the child speaks, not just
one. A major clinical issue, however, is that many of the tools available
for diagnostic decision making are based on empirical studies of English
speaking children. Thus, an important issue concerns how to analyze the level of
language development in children whose languages differ substantially from
English morphosyntax. For an excellent discussion of the issues involved in the
cross-linguistic clinical analysis of language samples, two recent sources are
recommended: <BR>Gutierrez-Clellen, V. F., Restrepo, M. A., Bedore, L.,
Pena, E., & Anderson. R. (2000). Language sample analysis in
Spanish-speaking children: Methodological considerations. Language, Speech,
& Hearing Services in Schools, 31 (1), 88-98.<BR>Leonard, L. B. (1999). The
study of language acquisition across languages. In O. L. Taylor & L. B.
Leonard (Eds.), Language acquisition across North<BR>America: Cross-cultural and
cross-linguistic perspectives (pp. 3-18). San Diego, CA: Singular
Publishing.<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">13. Barbara Conboy sent another
reference:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Gutierrez-Clellen, V.F. (1999). Language
choice in intervention with bilingual children. American Journal of
Speech-Language Pathology, 8, 291-302<BR><BR>I hope I didn't forget anybody.
Thanks again.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Beate<BR><BR></FONT></SPAN></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>