Welcome to Talk Nua’s Bilingualism page! This page is for you if your family needs two languages or more in your everyday life. It’s also for you if you’re worried about your child’s speech and language development. And if you’re waiting to see a speech and language therapist or are already going for speech and language therapy. It’s important to remember that your situation is unique. There’s no ‘one size, fits all’. But there are a couple of things that you can be certain of when it comes to your bilingual or multilingual family:
#1 Speaking two languages or more does not cause speech and language problems.
#2 Dropping a language does not improve speech and language development and can actually make things worse.
If you’d like to ask a question about your specific situation, you have a few options:
#1 You can leave a comment at the end of the page.
# 2 You can email me directly at marypat@talknua.com .
# 3 You can fill out the Talk Nua contact form here.
First up, two posts to help you know what to say when health care professionals or teachers tell you that using two languages or more is confusing or harmful. You can read them here and here .
Worried about your child mixing languages? Read this or watch this.
Prepare to be amazed by how your bilingual or multilingual baby’s brain handles two or more languages in this post that I wrote for Bilingual Kidspot.
Here are some posts about specific problems:
If your child has dyslexia and is starting to acquire a 2nd language at an older age, read this.
If you’re worried that your child is stuttering, read this , this, and this.
If you think your child might be late to talk, read this post that I wrote for Bilingual Kidspot.
Do you find it hard to understand your child’s speech? Read this, this and this .
And here’s a summary of recent research on learning two languages or more and having autism or Down Syndrome.
Confused about the silent period versus selective mutism? Read this.
If you’re worried about how learning two languages or more will affect your child, read this guest post that I wrote for Trilingual Mama.
Want to know more about language development in bilingual and multilingual babies and children? Then read this and this. Or if you prefer to watch, you can watch this interview I did with Olena Centeno of Bilingual Kids Rock with lots of tips about building languages naturally.
If you’re worried about your child and think they might need to see a speech & language therapist/pathologist, read this to help you decide.
And here’s a post about how to encourage your toddler to use the home language.
If you like these posts and videos, I’d love if you passed them on to your friends.
And if you’d like your own question answered, either comment below or email marypat@talknua.com
There’s loads more free information about how to develop children’s speech, language, and communication over at www.talknua.com so be sure and sign up to find out about new posts.
You can also find Talk Nua on Facebook and I’d be delighted if you liked the Facebook page!
Let’s get talking!
MP