Hot answers tagged language-development
16
According to this article, by the time your child is 18 months old, he/she should have a vocabulary of about 20 words, and a vocabulary of 50 words by the time he/she is 2.
However....
THIS article from the Mayo Clinic says that, really, by the end of 18 months (so closer to 19 months, really) your child may only say 8-10 words and that this is ...
10
No, a child will not teach themselves to develop a new "language" to express themselves, at least not by any generally accepted definition of the term "language".
Language is a complex tool used by multiple people or a community. A single child who is never exposed to verbal language does not make up their own... what would be the point if no one ...
9
My background: I also live in Sweden. I was born in Russia and lived most of my life in US. My husband is Swedish. We speak English at home. I know many many people with bi- and tri- lingual kids, and a couple of a 4-lingual kid.
My advice: go for all of them, and hope that enough of them stick. Above all, don't stress over it too much.
Let me address your ...
7
There are a fair mount of studies out there that show pretty that being bi-lingual is a clear benefit (e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?_r=0 )
However, this will depend on how you go about it. Small kids learn best by immersion: i.e.being exposed to situations where the second (or third) language is the ...
7
It's never too late to start! Especially if you're a native speaker, just go for it.
In my experience languages are most easily learned in the first 6-8 years -- learning happens more or less subconsciously while kids are that young. With other kids, it feels like actual, conscious learning.
Specific example:
I was raised bilingual (Danish, German) so ...
7
You should always encourage all attempts at vocalization that your child makes. Expressive verbal language delays may be due to hearing problems, developmental issues involving the mouth, tongue, palate, or throat, or neurological deficits. While I would never encourage a parent to worry excessively over a "missed" milestone (as they are in reality more ...
7
This is the "forbidden experiment"-- linguist wish they new more about this because it has implications for other questions. But doing this to children is barbaric child abuse. So we wait for natural experiments to arise. The best documented ones are the ones Beofett covered, so I won't repeat that part.
The cases of feral children and children locked up ...
6
According to a pediatric speech therapy site it's perfectally normal if this happens up to 4-5 years old. Following is a list of milestones expected for a child between the ages four and five.
4 - 5 Years
Voice sounds clear like other children’s
Uses sentences that give lots of details (e.g. “I like to read my books”)
Tells stories that ...
6
We though our son could hear perfectly too. We could communicate effectively with him, he seemed to hear us from across the room and seemed to have no problems. When he started childcare, we found that he did not learn as much as we'd expected from the group environment and would often ignore the kindergarten teachers.
By chance, a doctor mentioned to us ...
6
Regarding speech - I was reading an article recently about some research in this area. Scientists divided kids who didn't speak and were about 2-3yo in three groups.
All groups had a class where teacher would show cards with animals and say something like "Dog, dog says woof-woof"
1st group had no physical trainings and was a control group
2nd group ...
6
If your son is otherwise progressing well in his development (that "his play becomes more complicated" and "he wants to explain the rules" is an indication of that), I would not worry (and would certainly not start hectic manouevres to speed up his linguistic development).
If you don't feel qualified to judge his general development, don't hesitate to talk ...
6
If you start reading immediately after your child is born (or even before!), which I highly recommend, and if the goal specifically to exposure your child to English language, then I'd read the English story books in English only.
However, I'd suggest taking it a step further than just reading a selection of stories in English.
The more exposure to each ...
6
It's only me in the house. I have to teach him 2 languages.
Actually, you don't "have to".
In India, people in northern states speak Hindi at home. Not all Indians are fluent in English yet their toddlers know the meanings of English words like cat/watch etc.
The reason is the "playschool". Here the people usually send their children to formal ...
5
Both of my children were born tongue tied. My eldest had the tie cut after several months of age, and my youngest had it cut within a few hours of birth. While it may not be directly applicable to you, I was told it would bleed a little but not a lot, and while it's healing my children would be grumpy as it would sting. I saw my youngest getting his tie cut ...
5
We are a Swedish and Australian couple living in the Flemish part of Belgium.
I speak English to our little one. My partner speaks Swedish to her. At creche she will learn Flemish, though we don't teach that to her yet (she's not yet one). This will occur some time after she turns one. Later at school she will learn French, as Belgium is bilingual. She'll ...
5
When an adult doesn't know a word in a foreign language, they will resort to complicated sentences that have lots of subordinate clauses (i.e. that thing I used to eat cereal with). That would be way out of the range of a kid in the 2 word sentence phase. So he's looking for the right pair of words to express himself.
I've read that vocab acquisition is ...
4
My 2yr old son does the same thing with saying daddy from time to time, but we don't try to "make" him say anything. We do regularly prompt him to say things, but we do our best to not appear disappointed when he decides not to say them.
I believe that at this age he is going to control the things that he can and his speech is definitely something he knows ...
4
Welcome to the site, Sean!
I generally encourage learning foreign languages but it requires that the parents can participate. Don't underestimate the challenge of new languages. My personal experience is that children can learn languages nearly automatically but adults find it very difficult.
If you have a history of little or poor language learning ...
3
"Nuture Shock" by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman contains a very good chapter on language learning of infants. My gist on your question what you might do to improve language learning & talking:
Do not point at things and label them, but name whatever the baby is looking at.
Do not try to interpret what the baby might be thinking or intending. When ...
3
I think that we shouldn’t underestimate our children’s abilities when it comes to language learning. I personally would recommend that you go for all four – your wife would speak only Hungarian to your child; you would speak only German to your child; amongst yourselves, you and your spouse would speak English; and once your child is old enough, she or he ...
3
Experience from my bilingual family set up (5 year-old child):
First of all, I don't think you should worry.
Second, I don't think you need to look for any pediatrician advice at this point.
Third: the problem may me more related to the parents than to the child. If both parents work full time, and pre-school is in English, the child will have to work ...
3
Whatever the language, repetition is the key. If you want to have him understand Russian and English equally well, then you need to speak them with approximately equal frequency. Rather than just focusing on one word ("cat", "dog", "hello") at a time, use full sentences ("Come over here", "Sit down", "Let's eat a snack"). You can try telling him something ...
2
We have twins. They are bilingual/trilingual. One verbal and one much less verbal.
The verbal twin could say lots of words at 13 months (including vocalizing animal sounds) and at 17 months could do 2-3 word sentences. The non-verbal twin at around 17 months could probably manage mamma and pappa, and vocalized something in what we used to call "martian" ...
2
We tend to think of letter sounds as distinct, but linguists break them down into their constituent mouth/tongue/throat/lip movements. So 'aah' is just a simple throat vocalization, 'Da' is the same but with the motion of opening the mouth with the tongue. A number of sounds are like this that require little in the way of mouth muscle movement and for that ...
2
I can tell you that my 2.5 year old has the same issue. Maybe it's also related to the bilingual issue as he's been raised speaking Hebrew and English (and since Hebrew also has some of the German sounds - maybe that's the effect).
For example, he keeps complaining that he (s)lipped and got a (s)cratch on his knee. If I try to get him to say scratch - he'll ...
2
Well, I think the general consensus to control your own behavior is the route I'd take. Sure it's difficult, but you can't really expect your child to do (or not do) something you are not willing to do (or not do).
Check out this clip on mirror neurons from PBS and you can quickly see biochemically why modeling appropriate behavior is so vitally important! ...
2
If he is saying Poody instead of Woody, and Wook instead of Look, but also managing with Bottle then it appears he can say the L and W sounds, so that would rule out physical issues. Many kids do take longer with some sounds than others, and L, TH and S are pretty common ones to get to quite late.
My youngest had trouble with TH until she was 5, but we got ...
2
As a Border Northerner living in the Southwest, I run into this all the time. We even have different names for certain things. Additionally, since I love British Literature, we read a lot that introduces my little girl to other ways to phrase (and even spell things) all the time.
I've met kids with parents from the UK and New Zealand and the kids sound ...
2
That depends very much of the extent of the "glue air". The occasional middle ear infection needs to be treated properly, but shouldn't have any impact on speech and language development. If it's bad enough that it actually affects hearing over longer period of times, I would really focus on getting this fixed first. (CAVEAT: see your doctor) The key is to ...
2
Sources- Talking Hands by M. Fox & an ASL class I took.
I see you are sold on the idea of raising a bilingual kid-- me too, baby just arrived last month, and we're doing Russian, English with ASL. Since I live up the road from Gallaudet, I thought might as well learn real ASL and not baby ASL. Baby ASL is anywhere from 20-50 signs that are used just ...
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