If you are a bilingual (or trilingual) family, what % of the time does LO hear English vs another language?
How many words does your LO speak? In which language (or both)?
DS has zero words. He is one of the youngest here (he turns 14m next wk) and we are a bilingual family. He hears English about 35% of the time. I have a feeling he will have some speech delay, possibly due to the bilingualism. He didn't start babbling (ie, no consonants at all) until he was 10m. I am not worried...yet. He is on the cusp of walking right now, so I think language is taking a back seat. Just curious what other bilingual babies are doing here.
DS's receptive language seems to be on track... though I suppose it is harder to define than expressive language.
TTC since 10/2008 RE consult 6/2010 Dx:Unexplaied IF
Failed multiple cycles of Clomid+TI and Clomid+IUI
3/2011 inj+IUI #1 BFP. 4/2011 missed m/c.
Fall 2011 inj+IUI #2&3 BFN
Jan/Feb 2012 IVF#1 BFP 2/23 EDD 10/31/2012 ~~~ Halloween ~~~
Our IVF miracle, Baby Boy M, arrived on 11/8/2012!
Re: s/o words, bilingual families come in
I would not at this point assume that your child has a speech delay. And even if he did it would have nothing to do with being bilingual.
I work for a school system that has a large ELL population. When we have students enter whose primary language is not English they register through what we call the Multi-Cultural Center. They then do evaluations to determine whether or not the student needs ELL support.
I'm really just curious to see how other areas of the country are addressing the language differences in schools.
I was older but I was in an ESL class when I started school in the US. With DS I think there are special classrooms for ESL kids even at such a young age, I will look into it more closer to when he is 3/4. My cousin bareley spoke any English when she started pre-K some years ago and she was on the regular class. She did great and spoke it fluently by the time the year was over.
Failed multiple cycles of Clomid+TI and Clomid+IUI
3/2011 inj+IUI #1 BFP. 4/2011 missed m/c.
Fall 2011 inj+IUI #2&3 BFN
Jan/Feb 2012 IVF#1 BFP 2/23 EDD 10/31/2012 ~~~ Halloween ~~~
Our IVF miracle, Baby Boy M, arrived on 11/8/2012!
Dh speaks to him in Russian 40 percent and English 60 percent. I speak english 100 percent
I was also in ESL program when I started school at 5 in the US. I grew up bilingual and English was my third language. I think because I started so young, I was out of ESL within 1-2 years.
And to OP, I speak 60% Mandarin, maybe 5% Taiwanese (it just naturally comes out sometimes!), and rest English. My parents are about the same when they are with him but DH and daycare are 100% English. His first words other than Mama and Dada are Mandarin so far. I hope to push more Mandarin on him now because English will be so easy for him to pick up.
And I've asked my pediatrician about the "delay" in speech - bilingual babies are slower in speaking generally but my pediatrician says the benefits greatly outweigh this initial delay. Honestly, once my LO figured out 1-2 words, everything has started to flood in!