Speech Delay

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    Bilingualism – should I speak only English with my speech delayed child?

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding

    Introduction

    Bilingualism is a beautiful aspect of our diverse world. Growing up in a bi- or multi-lingual household is a wonderful gift, allowing children to communicate with a broader range of people and access many cultures.

    My own two children grew up in a bilingual German-English speaking household. They have both been so enriched by this experience, not only language- and learning-wise but of course also culturally: their world has always been so open and colourful. Growing up in inner London and having their German family and mum’s friends as well, this has been a wonderful experience. Both my boys speak German well (not quite like native speakers but like very good second language speakers) and both have very easily learned 3rd and 4th languages additionally when in secondary school.

    Whilst bilingualism has untold benefits, it’s not uncommon for bilingual children to take slightly longer to reach certain speech milestones. This should not be automatically mistaken for speech disorders but rather seen as a natural part of bilingual language development.

    Bilingualism and speech delays

    Sometimes, of course, we do see speech delays or disorders where a child’s speech development lags significantly behind their peers. We often see a delay in both languages equally, making it extra hard for to communicate effectively. BUT PLEASE KNOW the family speaking in multi-lingual languages never caused the delay/disorder!

    If there is a delay or a disorder any number of other reasons could have caused it, such as:

    • hearing impairments,
    • reduced phonological awareness,
    • sensory processing issues,
    • reduced attention and reduced joint attention,
    • neuro-developmental delays or difficulties,
    • general or specific learning difficulties
    • or sometimes other genetic factors.

    So, to say that the difficulty is due to a child being exposed to several languages is a red herring. (no offence to herrings!)

    Speech therapy

    Speech therapy can be powerful to help bilingual /multilingual children with speech delays unlock their full linguistic potential. By providing individualised assessments, targeted interventions, and involving families, speech therapy can bridge the gap between speech delays and bilingualism. It’s essential for the therapist and parents to work together to support the children in their unique linguistic journeys, helping them communicate effectively and thrive in both of their languages.

    Happy Islamic family sitting on the floor
    Image by Freepik

    Speak your home language at home

    Many parents report that they worry about speaking their home language at home and instead they have been focusing on just speaking English at home. They now rarely use their home language with their child. They fear that speaking a language other than English with their child will cause further delay and hinder their progress. All parents want the best for their child and often parents fear that their child won’t fit in or will be seen as ‘different’. So we can understand why parents feel that the English language is the only one worth having.

    But the opposite is the case: it is crucial to speak in both languages freely, both at home and outside the home! Both languages will benefit your child, no matter what the delay or difficulty is. Acquiring a ‘mother tongue’ or native language is absolutely vital for children to have a good, solid linguistic grounding on which to build other languages. Bilingual children may mix languages during speaking and parents may equally mix their languages. This does not hinder language development and is a natural part of linguistic development.

    Speak freely and naturally

    What is far more important than the question: ‘which language should I say this in?’ Instead think: ‘let me speak freely and naturally, let me respond naturally, in good intonation and let communication flow freely to the child.’

    Speech therapy can be a crucial resource for bilingual or multilingual children and their families.

    We work on targeted interventions to address speech and language difficulties, helping your child develop essential communication skills. For home practice between therapy sessions, we can recommend tailored treatment plans to help you help your child in daily life. Our input could be focusing on articulation, phonological awareness, attention and listening, vocabulary development and grammar.

    Family support is crucial in speech therapy. We like to work closely with parents to provide guidance and strategies for fostering language development in both languages at home.

    If you have any worries about your child being delayed in a bilingual or multilingual household do get in touch and we will be happy to support you in your journey.

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.

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    Correcting a lisp

    ByLondon Speech and Feeding
    Correcting A Lisp

    This is a surprisingly common speech error and it can be corrected really well in my experience. I have helped lots of children of all ages learn how to control their tongue movements and produce clear, sharp /S/ sounds and good /SH/ sounds.

    Initial consideration

    There are some factors which need to be considered before we can dive into therapy proper and these are they, in a nutshell:

    1. The student is not currently displaying negative oral habits such as thumb sucking or excessive sucking on clothing. This is because thumb sucking exerts pressure on the teeth and therefore can, over time, push teeth out of their natural order/position.
    2. The student does not have a restricted lingual frenulum or tongue tie which can cause at times restricted movements of the tongue (pending on how tight the frenulum is attaching the tongue to the base of the oral cavity); equally a labial frenulum or lip-tie can restrict lip movement and therefore physically restrict good speech sound production.
    3. The student does not have enlarged tonsils as they can sometimes push a tongue forward and also cause open mouth posture and open mouth breathing.
    4. The student’s motivation to change their speech pattern is high. (this is an important factor though with younger students I can get round this with a lot of fun games and good parental involvement!)

    When I do an Oral Assessment of my student these are the first factors I want to look at and consider. Often I will refer to other agencies such as Orthodontists, dentists or ENT specialists to advise and help with some of these factors before we can get going. However, there are strategies that we can work on almost straight away.

    Most of my Lisp students present with an open mouth posture: that is where the student has their mouth always slightly open for breathing. Over time the tongue starts to fall forward and rests on the front teeth or the bottom lip instead of finding a comfortable resting place either at the alveolar ridge (the bumpy spot behind the upper front teeth) or, alternatively, resting at the bottom of the mouth behind the lower front teeth.

    Another common problem is that the tongue is not moving independently from the jaw and so is reluctant to pull back or lift up inside the mouth as the tongue is guided in movement by the jaw.

    Combine those two factors and your tongue is not pulling back, or lifting up or doing very much at all without the jaw moving as well. This makes for unclear speech sounds, especially all the sounds we make at the front with our tongue or with our lips: /B/ /P/ /L/ /N/ and of course /S/ and /SH/ are particularly hard to make. We often also struggle with the /Y/ sound so ‘LELLOW’ instead of ‘yellow’.

    Do not fear!

    But no fear, these problems can be treated over time for sure! We often start with lip, tongue, and jaw exercises that help to move the tongue independently from the Jaw, our student learns that the tongue is a muscle and can be trained to do amazing acrobatic things in the mouth! WOW! It can actually pull back, lift up, and come down again all on its own!

    We work on breathing, holding our breath for a bit then pushing it out and then holding it again.

    And when it comes to the actual /S/ sound I often try and go a NEW route bypassing the Snake-Sound route if that is what had previously been tried and failed so that we can create completely new sound patterns in our brain and think about our sounds in a completely new way.

    We then work on producing the sound /S/ on its own for a bit, at the end of words, then on either side of complimentary sounds, for instance : ‘EASY” – the sound patterns here are EEE-S–EE : the /EEE/ sound is complimentary to the /S/ sound as the tongue is at the right hight for the /S/ already once you have it in place for /EEE/ -……see?! EASY!

    And gradually we work towards saying the /S/ sound clearly at the front of short words, then phrases and then sentences.

    The process takes some time and it depends on how ready the student is. This varies of course hugely so I can never promise the exact number of sessions we will take to get that Lisp fixed. A lot depends on home practice in between sessions, and this is of course crucial to all therapy! Every day 15-20 mins practice is a good average time to aim for and when this is done it shortens the therapy block drastically.

    I always give plenty of home work so there is never a chance of it getting boring or there being “nothing to do”!

    Do contact me. I really enjoy working with this type of student and get a great kick out of FIXING THAT LISP!

    Find a speech and language therapist for your child in London. Are you concerned about your child’s speech, feeding or communication skills and don’t know where to turn? Please contact me and we can discuss how I can help you or visit my services page.