Teacher Discussion Forums

One of my friends has a lovely 2-year-old child, but he can only utter several words so far. The parents have been worrying for several months. Just wonder is it normal for a baby to speak such late in bilingual environment(English, Chinese)? What should they do? Thank you.

I don't know if it's normal for bilingual kids or not, but maybe you could find an early childhood program in your school to see if they can help and if so, how soon. I've been in the room once for screening for a Spanish speaking kid. If it appears to the teachers doing the screening (we have at least two teachers there for it, one is the language specialish) they can make recomendations on doctors or if just being in the program when old enough can help. I think the child has to be three to be in our program.

My best friend's second son didn't speak much at all when he was 2. She didn't want to worry, but when he got to 2 and a half, and there were still very few words at all, she took him to get his hearing checked. His ears were completely blocked with ear wax, and the doctor concluded that he could hear fine until he reached about 2 years, then almost all sound got very muffled. Once his ears got cleared out, he started talking up a storm. He is a monolingual child.

My second son (bilingula environment) also spoke very little when he was 2. I of course worried about his hearing. He did have a large ear wax buildup, but not bad enough to block all sound I think. He finally started to come out with a few good words and many many more mangled words by 2 and a half. By the time his 3rd birthday came around though he was doing much better, and was only a little behind his classmates. Now at 3 and a half, he almost never stops talking, speaks very fluidly in his stronger language, and is finally starting to use his weaker language a little. Because he was so late to start talking, we didn't put any pressure on his becoming bilingual at first.

My advice would be to of course, have the child's ears checked, but barring any problem there, just sit back and wait. A child who is hearing properly and doesn't have any other disiabilities will start speaking eventually. At first one language will probably be stronger, but as long as the child is hearing a good amount of both, the other will come with time.

My first son spoke fluent English and only a few words of Japanese until he was 3 and we sent him to Japanese school 2 mornings a week. Within a month he was using full sentences in Japanese. He had it all inside him, and just needed an environment to let it out.