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Hi.. just wondering if anybody has experience of Japanese/English speaking children.

 

We have a new child, and whilst I expect verbal communication delay in bilingual children, this new child (2.5) did not make a sound (actually not true... he did cry when it was time to leave!). I'm not sure how long to leave it before asking for help! Receptive language was non existent without visual clues (not that unusual on his first visit... but you know how you just know something is not quite right...)

When I chatted with mum It would appear that he does not speak any words in English or Japanese at home apart from mama.

 

Any input appreciated!

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Go with your gut feeling and start making observations and notes of your concerns. We had a Polish boy who was exactly the same and we got SLT and the health visitor involved right from the get go as we 'felt' that all was not well. He is now approaching 4 and has been diagnosed with high frequency hearing loss as well as other issues involving the processing of information, because we got other professionals involved from the start he can now move onto school with the right support network in place. I might add that mum had a few concerns when we mentioned it to her initially and was relieved to know that she wasn't over reacting. Best of luck

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Children using a second language are often silent for long periods.. but we used to check what they were like at home in their first language and if using this did not worry..

 

I would seek help if they were not using either though. We used to give 6 weeks approx to settle into the setting taking the obs needed during this time to back up our thoughts along with a chat to mum about what was happening at home and then ask permission to take it further..leaving it a few weeks meant we had a lot of the paperwork and information needed to pass on to the relevant agency.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Hi.. just wondering if anybody has experience of Japanese/English speaking children.

 

We have a new child, and whilst I expect verbal communication delay in bilingual children, this new child (2.5) did not make a sound (actually not true... he did cry when it was time to leave!). I'm not sure how long to leave it before asking for help! Receptive language was non existent without visual clues (not that unusual on his first visit... but you know how you just know something is not quite right...)

When I chatted with mum It would appear that he does not speak any words in English or Japanese at home apart from mama.

 

Any input appreciated!

 

We have a fairly new child who has no language, whose family have dual language, but we quickly realised that this was not, as the parents assured us, a hearing problem for which his GP had already referred him for a hearing test.

Having done a couple of weeks of close observations on his overall behaviour as well as his reactions to noises and visual prompts, we then called in our Area Senco, who spent a whole day observing and interacting with the child. We are still waiting for the Area Senco's report but are expecting that it will confirm that the child is fairly high on the Autism spectrum.

This may not be the case with your child but you need to be completely open-minded when doing your obs as a mis-diagnosis of a hearing problem could delay things conderably

When doing your obs, pay attention to the child's reaction to sudden, unexpected sounds as well as responses to speech and visual clues- but also observe his general behaviour and skills as this could give extra clues as to whether it is a hearing difficulty or something more complex

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