12/25/2023 0 Comments Cons of being monolingual![]() Therefore, intervention success depends on the child’s ability to generalize communicative attainments in therapy across various communication settings and partners, especially within the family and community. It has long been agreed that speech and language therapy should use a holistic approach to meeting the communication needs of children with speech and language disorders rather than the traditional approach of providing interventions within isolated treatment contexts ( Fey & Stalker, 1986). This not only ensures a valid assessment of the child’s true linguistic skills but it also increases both the chances and the speed of recovery. In other words, language development can be typical or atypical irrespective of the number of languages the child is exposed to (Cruz-Ferreira, 2011 Kohnert, 2007).Ĭurrent research confirms that assessment and intervention in speech and language therapy for bilingual children should target each of the child’s languages. Similarly, bilingual children with speech and language disorders learn two languages relatively slower and perhaps not to the same level as their typically developing bilingual peers, but they match their monolingual peers with a speech and language disorder, if given similar opportunities. Monolingual children with speech and language disorders learn language, although at a slower pace and perhaps not to the same level as their unaffected peers. Children with speech and language disorders can learn two languages, as can children with Down Syndrome ( Kay-Raining Bird et al., 2005), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) ( Bialystok et al., 2016), Autism ( Reetzke et al., 2015), and Hearing Impairment ( Waltzman et al., 2003). Third, bilinguals with speech and language disorders are not at a greater disadvantage than their monolingual peers, all else being equal. Second, there is no scientific evidence showing that bilinguals are more prone to having speech and language disorders than monolinguals. First, there is no scientific evidence supporting the claim that switching to monolingualism helps a child overcome a speech and language disorder. There are several problems with this attitude. In essence, this is due to the fact that as it is often difficult – if not impossible – to find therapy materials in the child’s home language as well as a bilingual speech and language therapist that can provide assessment and therapy across both languages. This means families who have been using a minority language at home are asked to switch to the majority language so that the child can access the appropriate services ( Kohnert, 2007). The family is then advised to keep to a single language in order to consolidate the child's resources and make things easier. Unfortunately, a common belief is that if learning one language is hard for the child, then two languages will be even more difficult to master. ![]() In the UK, an estimated 5-12 % of all children are believed to have speech and language disorders ( Law, 2000). What is not yet well researched is bilingualism in children with speech and language disorders. These benefits are most likely due to the increased demand required for managing multiple languages on a day-to-day basis. The bilingual experience has been associated with higher educational achievement ( Multilingual Britain, 2013), improved social use of language ( Antoniou & Katsos, in press), and enhanced cognitive flexibility, symbolic representation, and other forms of executive control ( Bialystok et al., 2009). Recent research on bilingualism has shown that learning two or more languages at once, far from being a disadvantage, is associated with multiple benefits, as long as the child has sufficient support to maintain all of his/her languages ( Uljarević et al., 2016).
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