What is "normal" in bilingual children?

Tue Sep 30 13:26:07 UTC 2003

Hello Marita,
I agree with Annick that you have to consult as many people as possible to
get a basic idea of the child's level in each of the three languages. The
problem of course is that if you suspect that a child lags behind in one,
two or even all three languages, you may wonder in what way professionals
can be of any help: generally, only one of the languages (most often the
child's second, or third, language) is assessed.
Here in The Netherlands we are facing similar problems. When an immigrant
minority child (say a Turkish child age 2) is detected (for instance during
a regular check-up in a child health care center) as to have "some kind of"
language problem, the parents are usually referred to a special speech and
language center for a more thorough assessment. At that point the system
fails, because standardized diagnostic tools are only available in Dutch (as
a first language, I must add). Generally speaking, there's no assessment at
all of the child's development in Turkish (I should probably add here:
"Turkish as it is spoken in The Netherlands" because it appears that norms
are slowly changing).
Recently, a project started in which speech samples of Turkish are taken
into account in the assessment of Turkish children in the Netherlands. In
this project interpreters are trained to assist the clinical linguists or
speech therapists in analyzing the speech samples. It is of vital importance
that the interpreter knows what information is relevant for the person who
makes the diagnosis. As far as I know, this procedure seems to work well,
but it is too early to be implemented on a large scale. Moreover, Turkish is
just one of the many minority languages in this country; the dilemma is
whether we should train interpreter speaking other languages (Arabic?
Tamazight? Hindi? Sranan? and so on).

By the way, I am not surprised by the one year delay in German for this
trilingual child, on the basis of the CDI-equivalent. Don't forget, it's
just one part of the picture!

Best regards,

Jeroen Aarssen

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Dr. Jeroen Aarssen

S A R D E S, Language Unit
P.O. Box 2357 / 3500 GJ Utrecht / The Netherlands / (+31)30-2326230

www.aarssen.net                     www.sardes.nl
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-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Annick De Houwer [mailto:vhouwer at uia.ac.be]
Verzonden: dinsdag 30 september 2003 15:20
Aan: Marita Boehning; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
Onderwerp: Re: What is "normal" in bilingual children?

Hi Marita---

The problem you raise is really a very big one. It requires a very complex
answer, but I will here, at the great danger of oversimplifying things, just
write a few things that can perhaps help.
As Barbara Pearson and others have shown, you can't really judge a bilingual
child's knowledge on the basis of just one language (let alone, a CDI i one
language). By definition, a bilingual child knows a lot more than just one
language. But the problem is: there are no norms available that can easily
and reliably used for bilingual children. In the mean time: what to do?? My
own experience as a researcher in child bilingualism leads me to say that
one should get as much information from all the people in the child's
environment - from all the normal 'carriers' of each of the child's
languages, and hear what they have to say. If a child is functioning well in
all the languages he/she is exposed to, according to the people who know the
child, there is no cause for undue concern. If the child does OK in one
language, and not so well in the other, the child most likely has fewer
opportunities to learn/use the weaker language, and more intense input might
be a good 'remedy'. (It is quite normal for young bilingual children to know
each of their languages to different extents.) A real problem exists if the
child does not function well in any language. Then professional help is
called for - and more input in all the child's languages.
I'm sure that other colleagues will also attempt to respond. In the mean
time, I hope the above can be of some help.

Best regards,

Annick De Houwer

****************
Annick De Houwer, PhD
Director, Research group Language, Communication and Socialization

Dept. of Communication
Campus Drie Eiken
University of Antwerp
Universiteitsplein 1
B2610-Antwerpen
Belgium

tel +32-3_8202863
fax +32-3-8202882
email annick.dehouwer at ua.ac.be

> Van: "Marita Boehning" <boehning at kronos.ling.uni-potsdam.de>
> Datum: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 11:57:26 +0200
> Aan: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
> Onderwerp: What is "normal" in bilingual children?
>
> Dear members,
> I was recently asked for advice by a mother of a 3;5 year-old son who
> learns 3 languages as his mother tongue.  Turkish is the language coming
> from the father, English from the mother and German from everywhere else
> (as they live in Germany) and sometimes from the parents, too.
> As I haven't dealt with much research on bilingualism, I have hardly any
> idea, what is normal for a child who has to acquire 3 languages
> simultaneously. I looked at the German equivalent of the CDI (ELFRA-2),
> and it turns out his results equal a 2;5 year-old.
> Would a year delay be "normal" for such a child or is intervention
> indicated? And if intervention, then are there special approaches for
> those children?
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
> Marita Boehning
>
>
>
> ******************************
> Marita Boehning
> Department of Linguistics
> University of Potsdam
> P.O. Box 60 15 53
> D - 14415 Potsdam
> Germany
>
> *****************************
>
>
>