Language Development in Bilingual Children
Are you concerned about your bilingual child’s language development? Do you have a bilingual or multilingual child and want to know if they are on the right track?
Speech and Language Therapist Mary-Pat O’Malley gives expert tips and advice on the questions most asked about language development in bilingual children.
Hi! I’m Mary-Pat, a lecturer, speech-language pathologist, researcher, author. In this article am going to answer the following questions about the language development of bilingual children:
- Will speaking two languages or more cause delay my child’s language development?
- Is it harder to acquire two languages than just the one?
- Won’t they get confused?
Speaking two languages or more is actually the normal state of language affairs across the globe, but this fact seems to be a closely guarded secret. If you speak two or more languages then you are in the majority globally, so bilingual and multilingual language development is actually normal.
It’s not confusing or slower or harder at all.
So how does it all happen?
Language Development in Children starts in the womb.
Studies have shown that babies prefer stories that were read to them in the womb over new stories they hear on the outside- isn’t that amazing?!! In the womb, they hear the intonation patterns of the languages around them.
Babies are also born able to produce all of the sounds of all of the world’s languages
They can hear the difference between individual speech sounds like pa and ba when they are only a few weeks old. Gradually then these abilities are reduced to the speech sounds of the languages that they hear in the languages of their immediate environment.
This explains how as an adult it can be really hard to learn a language that has different sounds to your languages. I had a stab at learning Mongolian many years ago before going on a trip there.
I would say a word one way and my teacher would say ‘No, try again’. I’d say it again and she’d say ‘That’s it’ and I’d think ‘But to me it sounded exactly the same as the first way!!’ It was too late for me to go beyond the basics without having to invest major effort.
Babies are born wired and ready to acquire languages
As many languages as possible David Crystal, a well-known linguist, would say.
First words generally emerge at about 8-15 months depending on what book or research article you read. But before first words comes the child’s intention to communicate and their realisation that what they say has an impact on another person.
Intentions are things like commenting to you on something that’s happened, waving or saying hello and good bye; pushing something that they don’t want away. And these intentions generally begin to emerge at about 8-10 months.
How do you know it’s a first word?
It needs to be the same sequence of sounds used to refer to the same object or action every time e.g. wawa for water every time, whether it’s water in the sink, in a glass, in a puddle, the sea and so on.
Don’t take ages and stages for early language development too seriously
It’s best to think of them as general benchmarks. Australian speech-language pathologist, Caroline Bowen talks about 12 months –ish and I think this is a good way to look at it.
There is a lot of individual variation in children’s early language development and things like the quality and amount of interaction with adults play an important part.
The main thing is to keep an eye out for progress; you would expect to see new words emerging regularly. By about 18 months, the average vocabulary is 50 words. Children need about 50 words before they start to combine words into phrases like my bottle, mama gone, want ball etc.
Recommended: Speech & Language Milestones for Bilingual Kids
If you have concerns about your child’s language development?
If you’re concerned that your child’s language development is not progressing then here are two useful and effective things you can do.
1. Keep a communication diary for a month- nothing fancy – keep track of what your child likes to communicate about and how he does it. Does he use sounds? What about words? They’re not supposed to sound like adult words so just write down what you think it is.
Generally when we measure things, it makes our observation skills improve so you might notice that your child is actually communicating and using more words than you think.
2. Spend a dedicated 30 minutes a day playing with your child without distractions. Follow what they are interested in and talk about what’s going on or what just happened. Keep questions to a minimum and just have a running commentary going.
You can also try saying things they’d say if they could. What does this mean? Well, if he says ‘all gone’. You say, ‘dinner is all gone. You ate all your dinner. Yummy dinner!’ And so on, keeping it sounding natural.
Most children (monolingual and bilingual) develop speech, language, and communication without any problems.
There is a subset of children who present problems in their speech and language development. These problems may have a negative impact on social interactions and cognitive development in the early years, and may affect reading and writing and learning in school.
Late Talkers & Later Bloomers
About 15% of otherwise typically developing 2 year olds don’t say their first words at about 12 months or several hundred words and many 2 word combinations by 2 years. (2 word combinations are things like my doggie, Mummy gone, Mummy home)
Late talkers don’t yet have a minimal core vocabulary of 50-100 words and do not produce 2-3 word combinations by 2 years of age. Because typically developing children usually show a rapid increase in understanding & producing words at this age, the most obvious thing about 2 year olds with a language problem is their limited talking or word use.
About ½ of the Late Talkers will catch up to their peers by age 3 without intervention and these children are called Late Bloomers.
The remaining half of Late Talkers are at risk for persistent delays & can benefit from early intervention to help with potential long term negative effects of the underlying problem.
Late talkers at greatest risk for a persisting speech delay appear to have problems with understanding as well as producing language; a family member or members with language or learning disability, limited use of natural gesture and symbolic play skills (feeding teddy, taking teddy for a walk, pretending a saucepan is a drum) and more frequent or lasting occurrences of otitis media or glue ear.
Between the ages of 3 & 6, children’s language dramatically increases. For children with language problems or a speech delay, sentences are likely to be shorter, less grammatically complex, or produced with grammatical errors.
EXPERIENCE WITH TWO DIFFERENT LANGUAGES DOES NOT IN ANY WAY CAUSE LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS.
To the contrary, regular experience with 2 different languages has been linked to some social and cognitive advantages. Unfortunately this message still hasn’t got out there!
So keep doing what you’re doing with lots of communication opportunities being built into your day. Describe what’s going on around you and keep questions to a minimum, especially ones that you already know the answer to!
If you would like to read more about language development in bilingual children you may be interested in other posts such as Bilingual Kids and Speech Delay or Bilingual Children with Autism and Downs Syndrome
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Sokhan
Well; all article that I read from you so very interresting and then can I said so very importance for me and thanks
Rebecca
Thank you very much for this really informative and helpful post. I have a question that’s been playing on my mind regarding our multilingual toddler. I feel I may have made a mistake with regards to which language i use to communicate with him. I am of Swiss heritage, but born and raised in UK. Our main family language was always English. As a result my English is considerably better than my Swiss. As we plan to live in Switzerland once our son reaches kindergarten age (4/5 years old) I opted to speak with him in Swiss. I make a point of never using English to speak with him, however he hears me speaking English pretty much all day, every day as we currently live in England. My husband is German, and only speaks with him in German. We attend several toddler play groups, so he’s regularly exposed to English. However, I’m now at the stage where I feel I could be teaching him a much diverser range of words if I was speaking English. Do I now continue speaking Swiss, so as not to disadvantage him when we move to Switzerland, or do I start speaking English with him now to expose him to a much wider vocabulary whilst he’s still so young? He’s 21months old. He doesn’t seem to speak much, though he understands pretty much everything we say to him in a Swiss and German. He understands very little English. I’m very confused and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Bovey Huang
HI.
I’m Bovey from China. After reading this article, i feel it very helpful tor the parent to raise a bilingual baby.
My wife is going to give birth to a baby next month. All of our native language is Chinese.
Under the influence of my friend , i have decided to try to teach my baby how to speak English from his birth.
I have read some articles from your website, but i am still not quite sure what scope of topics i should say to my baby at the beginning.
Should i say simple words or simple sentences every day?
Nada
Hi,
Thanks for the very interesting article. My situation is more complex and i have been researching on this for some while now and still have no real answer. So i hope maybe you can help me. I was raised bilingual and also was my husband between us we speak English because non of our languages is common. So in our house hold we speak on a daily basis 5 languages. We are getting a baby at the end of September and we don’t know how to proceed with the languages. I would like our baby to know all of our languages and don’t know when is the right time to introduce them and how, because both of the parents would teach the baby two languages.. which may be confusing. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance!!!
Chontelle Bonfiglio - Bilingualkidspot
Hi Nada,
To answer properly I would need more information on the languages you speak and where you live.
Perhaps you would like to come join our group on Facebook where we can discuss in more detail?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bilingualkidspot/
Hope to see you in there!
Ayat
Hello,
My son is 2 years and 10 months right now. He lives in a bilingual environment English/Arabic. I and his father talks to him in both languages. He can say short sentences in Arabic and longer ones in English like where’s the othet crocs? Or can you gimme some water? And of course he sometimes mixes between the two languages. The main concern that he can not make a long conversation with me or he even don’t tell me a story about what happened to him in the preschool. What do you think??
Chontelle Bonfiglio - Bilingualkidspot
Hi Ayat,
The sample sentences seem fine for a child of his age. As for a long conversation- a lot of that depends on what you say to him. So if you say How was Pre-school today? or Did you have fun? Then you’re likely to get very short answers. It’s very common for young children not to want to talk about their day because they are so present moment oriented that when it’s over, they have moved on! Tips: pay attention to how you start conversations- what kind of questions do you tend to ask? Try and use statements instead like You look like you had fun today. Or tell him about something that happened to you- you have to tell a story to get a story sometimes. Otherwise, follow what he is interested in as in comment on what he is looking at or doing. It’s okay not to want to talk too sometimes. In that case, you can play alongside each other; you could try imitating what he does as a way to engage him. Hope that helps! MP
Emilia
Hi!
Congratulations for this great article.
I have a 4 and a half year old. Initially we only spoke Spanish at home but when he started to talk at 15 months we moved to US and has been exposed to English day cares since he was 2 years. He stopped ralking for a while but now he has a mix of both languages. He tries to talk in sentences but babbles a lot in the middle of them ( like a 3 y/old). Since he mixes both languages bot everybody can understand him. He was evaluated at 3 years old and they told us it was normal, but he still not perfect for a 4 and a half year old.
He improves every day and gains more words but to me he is delayed. He knows numbers, colors, animals, body parts in both languages but still cant talk in full sentences or tell a coherent story. He is learning the alphabet but is kind of confussing with some letters that sound similar.
Do you think he should go to early intervention? Shiuld he be re-evaluated? How can I help at home? We still speak Spanish at home. We live at MN and most people dont talk two languages. He will be on kinder next year and Im concerned that if we dont address this issue now he may be delayed. Help please!!
Florencia
Great post and super informative! I have a 27 mo old that just says mama, daddy, go. I’ve heard him using other words with his older brother but not with us, still he has a very limited vocabulary. We speak Spanish and English at home. I set up an appt for August 22nd but would love to hear some tips or advice. Thanks ?
mari
Hello! We are a bilingual family, my daughter is 15 months old she just say’s “papa” and sometimes “mama” a speech therapist told me that I have to speak her only in one language… I was reading through this information and I more convinced on what I read here What should I do?
Mary-Pat
Hi Mari- thank for your comment and question. I’m not usually very direct but in this situation, my advice is to ignore that suggestion from the speech therapist. It is not supported by the research or by any professional body that I’m aware of. Here are two posts I’ve written that will support you http://talknua.com/talking-with-your-bilingual-childs-teacher-or-educational-psychologist/ and http://talknua.com/what-to-say-when-the-doctor-gets-it-wrong/
In the meantime, focus on interacting with your daughter, talking about what is going on, singing songs and leaving a space for her to fill in a word at the end and looking books together where you talk about what she’s interested in. And keep in touch with the speech therapist in terms of language development ideas and activities that you can do in both languages. All the best, MP
Sabina
Hi Mary-Pat,
this article is very interesting and practical at the same time. We are raising our little girl in a bilingual environment (Italian&English). She is 2 year and 5 months and she has definitely a speech delay ( rather pointing at things than call them, number of words , and putting a 2 words sentence together). We have checked her hearing and we have no other signs that let us think that she might have other issues as Autism , etc.
We have seen a speech therapist who could see my child saying words in the context if pushed, so she gave us some tips to stimulate her and told us to watch it. In the last 2 weeks she has come up with some many new words that she randomly says , sometimes relevant in the contest . However she rather point at things that ask for them even though we know she can say the word. We are pushing her but she gets very frustrated if we “challenge her” and I don’t want to upset her.
Do you think we should keep seeing the speech therapist ?
Thank you very much
Sabina
Mary-Pat
Hi Sabina- thanks for your comment and question. It’s great that you are seeing progress in your daughter’s language development. Opportunity to communicate and need to communicate are important to motivate a child to use their language. I’m going to paste in a link to some communicative temptations which will give you ideas for how to create more opportunities- another name for them is environmental sabotage- you’re tweaking the environment to encourage communication. If she is used to having her needs met without having to say much, then she may experience some frustration at the change in dynamic. That’s to be expected and you are the best judge of how far to push. If she does become upset, you can still encourage her language development by saying what she would say if she could.
http://www.talkingkids.org/2011/07/communication-temptations-how-use-your.html
Also reduce questions like ‘What’s that?’ These test a child’s language and are not truly communicative. It’s better to describe what’s happening than to ask questions.
Another approach that I really like is called Enhanced Mileu Teaching- posh way of saying enrich the communication environment. The Prompting section of the pdf is very useful.
https://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Special-Education-Services/Documents/IDEAS%202015%20Handouts/2015%20Handouts/Enhanced%20Milieu%20Teaching.pdf
Another thing I would recommend would be to keep a diary of the kinds of things your daughter is saying and what she is using her language for. These are called Communicative Intentions. Things like; greeting, requesting, rejecting, commenting, labelling and so on. What is she using her language to do? You can track progress this way too.
So, should you keep seeing the SLP? Your relationship with the SLP is the key thing. Do you like her? Do you trust her? Do her suggestions make sense to you? How do you feel about going to see her? This is not an easy question to answer! If you’re concerned that your little girl’s language is delayed, then it’s probably a good idea to keep in touch with the SLP and see how her language progresses. At this age, the intervention is with the parents and focuses on how parents and other important adults in the child’s life can best nurture her language and communication development.
Hope this helps. Feel free to email me at marypat@talknua.com if you have any further questions. All the best, MP
Alissia
What if a child has a speech delay and is being raised in multilingual environment (3 languages)? Do you suggest to select one language and use all time and effort to help with its development or continue with 3 languages but risk a much slower progress?
Apart from the speech delay, child does not have any problems with health (Not Autistic, perfect hearing, no psychological or neurological problems)
Mary-Pat
Hi Alissia- thanks for your question. The most important thing to bear in mind is what does your child need the languages for? For communicating with immediate family? Extended family? Peers? Religion? Education? and so on. When you say speech delay, do you mean the pronunciation of words or the amount of words and combining words? As for one language per context, the research shows that this is not the most effective route to bilingualism- lots of people like OPOL but I’m not a fan myself and the literature suggests that mixing does not disadvantage children in terms of their language development. However, if you want to keep languages separate in a natural way, then activities like reading and singing tend to be naturally monolingual.
So, if your child has a diagnosed speech delay (pronunciation), then it can help to work on the sound patterns that are common to the languages so e.g. final consonants being left out in English and German for instance- as final consonants are important to both languages, then you’d expect to see transfer across languages. The question is which language to intervene in when – you can work on all at the one time or on each one separately- it depends on the individual language contexts and the kind of problem and the language needs- 50 Shades of Grey I’m afraid! Hope this helps answer your question somewhat- feel free to email me marypat@talknua.com if you have any further questions. And here is a post I wrote on language mixing that might be useful too http://talknua.com/all-mixed-up-language-mixing-and-switching-in-young-bilingual-children/
Aga
What about bilingual twins? My twin boys did not start saying single words until they were between 2 and 2.5 years old. They are now 3.5 years old.They started using sentences when they turned 3. Can twins have a speech delay? What about boys? Twin boys? Many thanks
Mary-Pat
Hi Aga- interesting question! There isn’t a lot of recent research on this topic but older research suggests that twins may be at risk for speech and/or language delay if they are premature, or low birth weight and parents may have less time to devote to communication while they are busy tending to the babies’ needs. There is a lot of individual variation in early child language development and where children are late talkers (less than 50 words at 24 months- about 15% of children) the majority of them catch up. It’s hard to predict who will catch up and who will need SLT though. And late talkers who catch up generally tend to have weaker language skills than typically developing children. Gender is a consistent risk factor for speech and language problems as is family history of speech, language, or literacy problems . Hope this helps answer your question- feel free to email me marypat@talknua.com if you have any further questions.
Amanda Miss Panda
This is a great post that I would share with parents who are thinking about raising their children in more than one language. It is important to know all the facts so the myths do not hinder the bilingual journey.
Mary-Pat
Thanks Amanda- I’m delighted you found it helpful!
Mary-Pat
Aviva
I would like to know when you suggest initiating a third language? There are three spoken in our family and I have had a lot of conflicting advice as to whether one should introduce all three from birth, or rather the third at a later stage?
Bilingualkidspot
Hi Aviva,
You can introduce a third language at any time providing you can give your child enough exposure to it.
From birth is probably the best way, but most research will tell you that if you start before age 4 they should be able to learn it just as well.
My boys are 2 and 4 now, bilingual English/Italian. We introduced a third language, Spanish, just over a year ago. We would have introduced it earlier however we do not speak Spanish ourselves.
My 4yo now speaks quite fluently, and my 2yo speaks a bit of a mixture of all three languages.
The best thing is to make sure you have a plan, who is going to speak what to your children and when.
It really depends on who speaks which languages between you and your partner.