second language

[Annette Karmiloff-Smith]

A personal question to blingualism experts please.  My grandson is
almost 4.  He is for the moment monolingual - English - and has a
slight speech impediment for which he has speech therapy.  It seems
to be entirely at the articulatory level as far as I can see.  He had
a hearing problem for some time and now has grommets and hears far
better.  My daughter is bilingual French-English and would like her
son to learn French too.  She feels that she herself should continue
speaking English to him.  But there is a French playgroup he could
now join and he does anyway hear French from time to time in his
environment.  The question is would it be wise/unwise for him to
start hearing another language at this time, when he is still having
speech therapy for English?
Any advice most welcome.
Annette
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Professor A.Karmiloff-Smith,
Head, Neurocognitive Development Unit,
Institute of Child Health,
30 Guilford Street,
London WC1N 1EH, U.K.
tel: 0207 905 2754
fax: 0207 242 7717
http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/units/ncdu/NDU_homepage.htm
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