Getting Your Words Out!

Back in April I wrote a blog post called 'Toddler Talk and the Bilingual Child' writing about Milo's speech and how he show preference to speak certain words in English and others in German and how I would often struggle to understand him as he would speak toddlerish German to me and I struggled with his toddlerish English at the best of times, let alone when he spoke in a language that is secondary to me!

7 months down the line and his speech has really come along. A couple of months ago I went to a 'Development meeting' at Milo's nursery to see how he was getting along, to ask his carer's any questions I may have had and to discuss any of their concerns. These meetings are always an interesting affair as both I and Milo's dad are there and we tend to have differing experiences with Milo and to see alternative sides to his personality. These meetings are also our chances to delve in to how Milo behaves with the other parent as well as the opportunity for the nursery to learn about how Milo's developing at home. For example, in the last meeting, I mentioned about Milo's love to read. How he is often 'reading to himself' at home (he picks a book and will sit on the sofa talking out loud in random words, leafing through the pages, as if he is reading the book) and he loves story time with mummy and 'The Englander' before bed each time he's with us, whereas at his Dad's where there's less emphasis on reading (I am an eager reader, with a good collection of books myself, so I have always encouraged Milo with reading to him regularly) he generally only reads at bedtime storytime and his dad was shocked to hear how eagerly Milo reads at my place.

In that meeting Milo's carer bought up a concern about Milo's speech development. She said that his vocabulary had improved and although it was on the lower scale for his age range, it was no longer a reason for worry, however, his speech was very unclear and he had a tendancy to just mumble through his words or to use sounds to communicate much like a baby instead of using his words. This was something I was aware of but not having much experience with kids Milo's age, I wasn't aware of if he was that behind or not. She said that Milo likes to play the clown all the time and that she felt Milo was making up for his lack of ability to communicate well by making the other kids laugh so that they would like him instead. Very very true with Milo! He was also still going through biting phases and was hitting the other kids alot and it was felt that this was due to his frustration at not being able to communicate his feelings with words so he made his point physically instead. All very clear at home too! The carer actually reckoned that Milo wasn't using his tongue properly and that that was the reason for his speech being so unclear and said that we should keep an eye on it and should he not make the verbal leap to put him to the level expected for his age to by the time he turned 3, then we should take him to a speech therapist to just help him learn to speak clearer (something his cousin here had to do also.)

I am happy to say that within the last 2 weeks there has been a MAJOR boost in his speech capabilities and he is now really starting to be able to say what's on his mind. He's forming sentances in German now and is even refusing to say certain words in English already, something I thought may happen at some point but wasn't expecting quite yet. He makes a big point of pointing out things and I am thrilled to say that he often says ''thank you'' or ''danke'' off his own back now too! Great! I am so excited to finally be able to interact with him verbally a little more and that he is starting to tell me things more other then to just shout out random words. The nursery are also able to understand him much better and it looks like this part of his development is really finally swinging upwards. Yesterday when I had him briefly, he was back to this really lovely, sweet, hugging kid who wanted to involve me and chat with me and I loved it. I saw a bit of the Milo that had been missing for a while, cloaked behind the frustration and annoyance. Long may it continue!


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