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Speech
and Language Pathology
Special
considerations for the treatment of bilingual children.
A true language disorders expresses itself in both (or all) of a
child's languages. Stopping one of the languages does not improve the child's
language. For more information on bilingualism and language disorder, please follow the links.
There are various options for treating
language disorders in bilingual children:
 A
bilingual speech pathologist can provide treatment in both of a child's
languages or in the language preferred by the parents. There are a few bilingual speech
pathologists in Victoria who are happy to treat your child in your home
language. The Victorian Branch
of the Multicultural Interest Group of Speech Pathology Australia maintains a
register of bilingual professionals. Susanne is happy to provide therapy in German. For
inquiries about the availability of a speech pathologists speaking other
languages, please contact info[AT]bilingualoptions.com.au
[please note that email address has been modified to disallow machine
reading]
Many
aspects of language intervention transfer between languages. Thus intervention in English can be
quite successful for both of a child's languages. In any case, intervention in English is better than no
intervention at all.
Legitimate
treatment options include direct treatment and indirect treatment. Direct
treatment means that the speech pathologist teaches the child. Indirect
treatment means that the speech pathologist teaches the parent how to teach
the child. Either one or the
other may be chosen by any speech pathologist treating monolingual
children. For the treatment of
bilingual children indirect treatment can successfully influence the
development of the home language.
Indirect treatment can be delivered irrespective of whether the speech
pathologist shares the home language of the client.
Another
alternative is a combination of direct and indirect treatment. For this, the speech pathologist
treats the child in English during the clinic sessions. The parent or carer is present and
effectively learns from the speech pathologist how to continue the language
stimulation at home in the home language.
Goals
for the home language intervention can be set on the basis of what is known
about the stages of language development in the child's home language. For many languages these are
accessible to professionals through research publications even if the
professional does not share the child's home language. (By the way, just because
professionals are able to speak a particular language does not mean they know
about the developmental path of that language. All professionals need to get this information in
self-study.) Together with the
families, the professional then designs a program which enhances the language
development of the child in both languages.
If
parents have difficulties understanding the speech pathologist, it is
important that an interpreter be involved at least in the early stages of
assessing the child and setting goals.
It might be possible to fade the interpreter out as the parent becomes
comfortable with the professional and the routine of learning language
teaching strategies in English and transferring them to the home language.
Parents or
professionals involved with bilingual children who would like references to back
up the above assertions may contact info[AT]bilingualoptions.com.au
[please note that email address has been modified to disallow machine
reading]
Groups
interested in presentations on these and other issues related to
bilingualism, please check through the available talks or consult the resource pages.
last updated: September 26th, 2007
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