September 28, 2020
by Mary Pat
Comments Off on Language Development in Multilingual Twins
My last post which you can read here is all about language development in monolingual twins. There isn’t a lot of recent research on that topic and there’s even less out there when it comes to multilingual twins. I kept … Continue reading
August 20, 2020
by Mary Pat
Comments Off on Are twins slower to talk?
This is the first of a three part series about speech and language development in twins. Myself and Ute Limacher-Riebold of Ute’s Intenational Lounge are putting our heads together to look at the research and real-life experiences. Be sure … Continue reading
May 6, 2020
by Mary Pat
Comments Off on How To Encourage Your Child To Use Your Home Language
So in your family you need two languages; one is a home language and one is the community language. You speak your home language (German) with your child and your partner speaks English with them- the community language. You and … Continue reading
April 16, 2020
by Mary Pat
Comments Off on 8 Things To Remember If Your Multilingual Child Needs Speech & Language Therapy
#1 multilingual children have two separate language systems from early on and they don’t get confused. Yes the languages influence each other but that’s not a sign of confusion. In fact, it’s a sign of separateness. You can only mix … Continue reading
March 25, 2020
by Mary Pat
Comments Off on How To Teach Your Child A Word in Any Language
So we know that vocabulary is very important for learning to read and especially for understanding what you read. Children learn a lot of words! Some estimates say that school-aged children learn around 3000 new words a year while children … Continue reading
January 16, 2020
by Mary Pat
215 Comments
How long should it take for your child to learn English once they start school? If you and your partner speak home languages and your child begins to learn English when they go to school, you might be worried … Continue reading
December 16, 2019
by Mary Pat
Comments Off on How to do Dialogic Reading with your child in any language
In my last post, you found out about dialogic book reading and how to use books as props for conversations with your multilingual child in whatever language you need. (You can read about the 11 Principles of Dialogic Reading here. There … Continue reading
August 29, 2019
by Mary Pat
Comments Off on Six of life’s frustrations that are necessary for our children’s emotional development.
A few years ago, I did an interesting course with the wonderful developmental psychologist Gordon Neufeld. (You can check him out here. ) I learned a lot about attachment. And the importance of frustration for our children’s emotional development and well-being. The general idea is … Continue reading
July 4, 2019
by Mary Pat
143 Comments
Dr Kathyrn Kohnert, a speech & language therapist and researcher in the US wrote a very interesting article in 2010 for speech & language therapists. Her aim was to explore how to best provide speech & language therapy for bilingual … Continue reading
May 13, 2019
by Mary Pat
195 Comments
If you’re a parent of a child with autism and you’re raising your child using two languages or more, it’s highly likely that somewhere along the way, you’ve been told to drop a language and only focus on one. Because … Continue reading