Bilingualism: Children developing more than one language

By Sunita Shah - Service Lead for North West London and Specialist Speech and Language Therapist in Bilingualism

I grew up in a bilingual family and was exposed to Gujarati and English from birth, I learnt to speak Hindi watching films and trips to India. I have very basic knowledge of French, Spanish, Arabic, Urdu and Punjabi, which has been learnt through school, and families I have worked with.

---

I have two boys…. English is the dominant language at home, although we always use a few Gujarati words. My children hear Gujarati spoken when I am interacting with friends and family. The oldest that is 5 years old understands a few phrases and is now beginning to speak a few phrases. This is to my total embarrassment as I have been a practicing Speech and Language Therapist for 18 years and 15 years of my practice I has specialised in working with bilingual children and families and developing Early Years Settings, Schools and Speech and Language Departments nationally to encourage children to develop more than one language. How services should support and identify bilingual children who have learning needs or underlying communication difficulties. I have been the Chair of the London Clinical Excellence network for a number of years and also the National Advisor for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapist in Bilingualism.

BACKGROUND

Did you know 75% of the world is bilingual? And there are over 6,000 living languages in the world. In London Schools over 200 languages are spoken.

Do you speak another language? How did you learn the languages you speak? Was it from birth? Is it the school you went to? Or a country that you lived in? How fluent are you in the language/s you speak? Do you children speak and understand the language/s as you?- wow lots of questions….

BILINGUALISM – A simple word yet such a complex term. How would you define bilingualism?
Is it?
The level at which they understand language?
The proficiency of the language spoken?
Should this extend beyond oral language reading/writing?
Is it dependent on the frequency/context of language use?

---

HOW DO CHILDREN LEARN AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE?

Many families disregard teaching their children an additional language, thinking it will confuse them…. THIS IS THE TOTAL OPPOSITE! Bilingualism has sooooooo many ADVANTAGES to the cognitive and language system which we will explore later.

So how do children develop another language? Well if you think about it an Elephant will ALWAYS be ‘big, grey with a tusk and trunk’ no matter what language you speak, you are not changing it into a tiger!, we have to always remember that children will bring their knowledge and experiences as a joint system when developing languages. An elephant will always be the same, so when a child is learning more than one language they are not learning two features just one… the only thing is in English we call it “Elephant” and in Gujarati for example it’s a “Hathi”. There is always a common underlying proficiency, (Work of Jim Cummins 1984:2001).

STAGE 1
Words
Initially the child develops an understanding of words e.g. 'chair' (= 'sit on it'). Then they develop a name 'label' (vocabulary), which might include names of objects from all the languages the child hears

STAGE 2
Sentences
When making sentences, children use rules to help them put the words together. The bilingual child initially only has one set of rules. Your child may mix rules from both languages or use the rules from the language he/she hears most. This stage makes the child's sentences sound incorrect or confused

STAGE 3
Competency
Develops when the child separates the vocabularies and rule systems for the two languages.
The child may also mix the two languages in one sentence, this mixing is a normal and acceptable feature in bilingual language development.

VOLTERRA/TAESCHNER 1978

---

ADVANTAGES OF BILINGUALISM

There are many advantages to being bilingual… here are a few
• Bilingual children have found to have a higher IQ
• Increases academic potential
• Have increased self esteem
• Think more creatively
• Find it easier to learn other languages
• Bilingual children have better reading abilities
• Communicate with a range of people
• Job Opportunities
• More empathetic

I think one of the priceless and most precious things that being bilingual has given me is the ability to communicate with the elder generation… it’s been magical being able to communicate in the same language as my grandparents listening attentively and learning so much about their past, their experiences, and life teachings. Something I treasure immensely.

---

TOP TIPS TO BILINGUALISM

• It is important that you continue to use all languages introduced to the child.

• Do not be concerned about mixing different languages in one sentence. This is natural for a bilingual speaker.

• The focus should be helping the child feel successful in giving and receiving a message. Continue speaking your chosen language/s to your child even if he or she speaks back to you in a different language. If the child responds the message has been understood.

• Use short phrases with lots of gesture and facial expression, as well as expression in your voice. This will help the child understand the meaning behind the words.

• Do not tell your child “answer in XXX Language”, this puts additional pressure on the child to communicate and the child may develop anxiety or refuse to communicate.

• Do not only use one language, its natural for bilinguals to switch between languages, be as natural as possible with your communications.

• Avoid one language one environment, one language one person scenarios. Communication should be free and natural for it to give the child consistent model in the home environment to learn.

• Remember it’s All about exposure to the language if you do not speak the languages in the household they child may have exposure from grandparents.

• Encourage your child’s attempts to communicate in either language, giving lots of praise.

• Use nursery rhymes and stories from any culture/language

Makaton: signing your way to successful communication

By Eleanor Harris - Director of Magic Words Therapy and Specialist Generalist Speech and Language Therapist

Want children to understand you better in the classroom? Increase your gesture and use key word sign!

As a Speech and Language Therapist working with children with Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN), I use key word signing whenever I speak to my clients to help to support their understanding. I also use key word signing to scaffold their spoken sentences, cueing them in with sign for the next word or idea in their spoken sentence. 11 years of experience tells me that this works really well and benefits the children, but what is the evidence to support this?

---

The answer is that there is a lot of research that confirms my clinical experiences – there is a neat summary of this evidence here. 

Why does it work?

Imagine you can’t hear at all, or you can hear but you can’t make sense of the sounds you are hearing, as though you are hearing an unknown foreign language. You can see your teacher is talking, but her hands are still, and her face is expressionless. You don’t understand one word of what she says. You feel a rising sense of panic, what are you supposed to do? Everyone is looking at you. Your body begins to go into fight or flight mode. You don’t know what is expected so you have an emotional reaction. Perhaps you freeze, absolutely terrified. Perhaps you hit the table and run from the room. Perhaps you internalise this feeling of panic and never want to communicate at school again.

---

Now imagine you still can’t hear or process the sounds that you hear, but this time your teacher is pointing at the things she is talking about AT THE SAME TIME that she says the word, for some words she is doing a SIGN at the same time that she says the word and the sign looks like the object or action. She is gesturing where things start and finish and she has a really expressive face so I can tell when her words are a question rather than an instruction, and I can tell how she is feeling when she says them. As she signs each key word, her speech is slowed down, giving me a chance to process the sounds and words a bit better. I understand 2 or 3 pieces of information from each sentence, I am learning what some words mean because the sign is said at the same time as the word, I learned a new word because the rounded circular outline you just mimed with your hands when you said the word ‘balon’ gave me a clue to understand that it means ‘ball’. I can see you want me to put the ball in a particular place behind me, I can tell because you pointed there after you said ‘balon’. I feel comfortable, I know what to do, I’ve learned new words and I achieve success. I want to communicate again next time.

We know key word signing and increased gesture doesn’t just help SLCN children, but also helps an increasing number of English as an Additional Language children in our schools, as well as typically developing children – listening to a person that uses more gesture is much easier than listening to a person who stands still and expressionless.

For further information on MAKATON, take a look at their website

Brick by Brick

By Natasha

Those familiar little bricks are being put to extraordinary use.

Originally developed by Daniel B. LeGoff (a neuropsychologist), who saw the mighty potential of this humble brick, Lego® Therapy has grown into a motivational practice used by speech and language therapists, teaching staff and parents alike.

It is believed that the name Lego® was adapted from the Danish phrase for ‘play well’. Certainly for many children, the ability to play and interact within social settings seems perfectly natural: it is a skill we often take for granted.  Although, there are also children who find the strategies needed for peer interaction less accessible. Intimidating, even.

---

How can a child learn to socialize in a safe and supportive environment?

Our method: Lego® Therapy!

At Magic Words, we use this play-based approach to facilitate children toward ''communicative competence'' (Ralph and Rochester, 2016), depending on their individualised targets. Whilst some might need to work on maintaining eye contact and attention, others might attend the group to aid understanding of prepositions, problem-solving or sequencing.  

The aim of the game is, of course, to build a Lego model. This can be a simplistic or as complicated as you need it to be, according to ability and attention span of the group. The roles that we use are:

• Builder: constructs the model, listens to the architect

• Supplier: selects the bricks at each stage, listens to the architect

• Architect: holds the instructions, describes the bricks to the supplier, instructs the builder where to put them

• Facilitator: identifies problems and supports the group with solution

If you have limited numbers you do not have to include every role. Pick them according to the child's targets. For example, if the child struggles with listening you may wish to encourage them by letting them be the builder; they have the motivational reward of receiving a brick and putting it in place. Alternatively, if you have a child who needs to practice describing and ordering key words, the architect role would be an option.

In addition to the jobs, we establish a set of lego-rules to encourage 'model' behaviour. Depending on the age of the group, this could be a clear-cut as good sitting, good looking, good listening, and good talking. Lego® points can be rewarded to acknowledge their participation.  

Once the adult has explained each rule and role, they must aim to 'gradually step back and allow the participants to work out social solutions more independently as the intervention progresses' (Ralph and Rochester, 2016). It is hoped that at some point each child will become their own facilitator and navigate social interactions with the same skill they require to build a collaborative model.

One parent, whose child attended Lego® Therapy sessions at Magic Words, explained how her child began to generalise his new awareness:

“He has understood what good listening is for the first time. He now understands why we need to listen and what we need to do to listen well. This has really helped him access small group activities and to concentrate. His eye contact which was a major problem area for him has also improved as a result of understanding that looking is important as it helps people know you are talking to them. He has thoroughly enjoyed the activities and it has also increased his interest in Lego which he is playing with much more outside the group. I think it has also improved his social skills generally...” 

With the motivation of Lego® and the naturalistic setting of a play-based task, this child was able to access a level of social interaction, that he had previously not understood the benefits of.

It has certainly become apparent that this therapy is versatile and accessible approach for those with social, communication and language difficulties. Carolyn Green and Elen Wales, two of our very own therapists, remarked in their article 'Building Lego, building language': 'Several parents expressed that Lego Therapy offered intervention where the alternative would have been to not access sessions at all' (Bulletin, November 2016). 

Consequently, what does Lego® mean to the therapists at Magic Words? 

Lego® Therapy is a impressively straightforward and structured approach that allows for a great variety of skills to be modelled, practiced and repeated. It allows a therapist, teacher, teaching assistant or parent to incorporate a diverse range of targets under the guise of play. It allows the children who participate to have fun, to collaborate, to build their skill set brick by brick.

To learn more about Lego® Therapy, please contact us.

Diagnosis: pulling through the grief process

By Eleanor Harris - Director of Magic Words Therapy and Specialist Generalist Speech and Language Therapist

Providing a child’s diagnosis to a parent can be like launching a grenade at them.  With one short sentence you can be shattering their hopes and dreams of the perfect child that breezes through school, makes friends easily and goes on to over achieve. It doesn’t matter if the diagnosis is something as mild and temporary as a simple speech sound delay, or as serious and long term as Autism. Some parents readily accept the diagnosis after a long battle to get their child’s difficulties recognised while others are battling through the grief process and are not yet able to accept what professionals are telling them, seeking second opinions or not seeking any opinions at all and holding up a shield to the grenade.

---

There is little in a Speech and Language Therapist’s training that prepares them for giving a diagnosis to a parent. It wasn’t until I had been through the grief process with my own son and his diagnosis of permanent hearing loss at one month old that I fully understood how the words can sting. The brain reacts to protect itself through denial, you can feel angry at professionals and yourself for not doing enough, ‘if only’ thoughts plague you with guilt and sadness sets in for the perfect and easy child development that your child will not have and the uncertainty for the future. 

Our role as diagnosing professionals is to recognise the stage at which a parent is at in the grief process, to soften our tone and words to show empathy, to be honest and frank and to provide them with a blanket of support and encouragement. We should provide high quality information using easy to understand language, given at a time when the parents are ready to receive it. I remember being given boxes and boxes of information that remained unread for quite some time until I was ready to ‘deal with it’. Professionals need to remain on hand for weeks after the diagnosis to be available for the questions that will inevitably arise after the shock of that initial grenade.

As you move through the process, sometimes stuck in one stage, sometimes feeling all of them at once, you gradually move towards the stage of acceptance.  You are able to accept where your child is now, what you can do to make them happy and healthy at their current stage, and begin to look towards the future with hope, optimism and certainty. Although your child’s passage through the childhood years won’t be the same as everyone else’s, they will achieve their best, be happy and be who they are with loving support from their family.

Having moved through the grieving process some time ago now, I look at my little boy and I’m so proud of his achievements and genuinely don’t even see his disability as a disability any more, just a difference that makes him stand out from the crowd.

Speech Therapists – for further information about best practice when providing a diagnosis, read this informative article

Parents – for further information on understanding the grief process related to a child’s diagnosis read this informative article

True Colours

By Natasha White

February. The month when all that mushy emotional stuff is celebrated. An overwhelming amount of Valentine's Day cards and gifts line the shelves of the shops and what colour strikes us most? Red. Maybe pink. Clearly, we have come to associate a particular colour with love, just as we load all other colours with meanings and feelings.

---

Anna Llenas, a Barcelona based illustrator and author, explores this in her beautiful book, The Colour Monster(Templar Publishing). 

A rather confused little monster is feeling a little muddled inside. Luckily, he has a friend, a little girl, who helps him sort through and focus on each emotion separately. As they work to place each emotion in a jar, Llenas cleverly provides several perspectives from which to explore the feelings in greater depth:

Label: the emotion is given a name

Describe: uses a metaphor or simile to create a comparison to a concrete object or noun

Action: shows how it can manifest and what it can feel like

Once the feelings are sorted and understood, the monster begins to feel better. He even starts to feel a warm and cosy feeling. He is surrounded by a mixture of pink flowers and hearts and the reader is asked: 'But what's this?' Something I think we can all recognise... 

Importantly, the monster's private feelings are linked back towards seeking social engagement. The little girl suggests ways in which he can 'deal' with the different emotions and most of them stress the importance of 'togetherness', such as holding hands.  

As a result, the book could be used as a classroom or therapy tool; The Colour Monster provides a fun platform to teach emotional literacy. 

---

Some tips for teaching your child emotional literacy skills:

 For the younger ones:

• Create and colour your own colour monster and label the feelings

• Make colour cards for the child to signal how they are feeling today

• Make your own jars and put coloured counters or items in to describe feelings

• Contextualise: think about times when they felt the different emotions. There is also an official activity book available, which puts the colour monster in different situations and asks you to colour him in to illustrate his emotion. 

• Discuss practical strategies to cope with emotions 

For the older ones: 

• Consider empathy: learn that you can inspire feelings in other people too 

• Explore why did the little girl want to help her monster friend

• Explore what happens when more than one feeling gets mixed up together

Get to know us a little...

By Natasha White

Hello Friends!

Welcome to the Magic Words Therapy blog. Here you will find advice, handouts, interviews and links to useful pages, amongst other exciting features.  

---

If you want to get to know us a little more, here are some facts for you: 

1) Magic Words was founded in 2009 by Director, Eleanor Harris. Shortly after our Director, Frankie Paterson, came on board. Since then we have expanded to meet the needs of our clients. 

2) We have 11 employed therapists, whose specialisms include: Complex Needs, Hearing Impairment, Selective Mutism, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Stammering. We also have 2 administrative staff to help you with your queries, all of whom have teaching experience. 

3) We have 4 qualified Elklan tutors and 1 Makaton tutor on our staff. We regularly run courses in Milton Keynes (just by junction 14 of the M1) and Sarratt (just between junction 18 and 19 of the M25). We also offer bespoke school training. If you wish to know more, please visit our schools page. 

4) Our therapists work in a wide range of settings and in partnership with a variety of specialist agencies. Currently, we work across 20+ schools (including nurseries, primary and secondary schools) in the areas of Milton Keynes, Bedford, Northampton, Luton, Dunstable, Elstree, Watford, Borehamwood, Kensington and Harrow. We have worked with fostering and adoption agencies, mental health professionals, NHS staff, occupational therapists, to name but a few. 

5) Since 2015 we have run Lego® Therapy sessions with primary and secondary school aged children. They have been extremely successful in promoting social and communication skills. Two of our therapists (Carolyn Fox and Elen Wales) have recently had an article, entitled 'Building Lego, Building Language' published in Bulletin, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapy magazine. 

6) We run an extensive continuous professional development (CPD) scheme for our therapists and invite other professionals to join us. You can find our CPD diary and our booking page here. On previous dates we have welcomed Daniel Hunter (Treating Dysfluency in Pre-School Children and Working with School-Aged Children who Stammer), Sunita Shah (How to Work with Bilingualism in Children’s Speech and Language Therapy and Educational Settings), Melanie Cross (Attachment and Communication), Alison Bryan (Colourful Semantics), Dr Tony Sirimanna (Auditory Processing Disorder) and Pamela Williams (Nuffield Dyspraxia Programme Training). 

7) Between us, we have 18 degrees and 7 diplomas. All of our therapists are registered with Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) and are regulated by the Health Care and Professionals Council (HCPC).  

8) We are a charitable bunch! From wearing our ugliest Christmas jumpers to donning our running gear, we love to support worthwhile causes and raise a little money along the way. Look out for our participation on awareness day events and sponsor us if you can.

Please note: all facts accurate at the time of writing. They are subject to change- we are busy growing our clinic!

Christmas Jumper Day 2016

We're getting silly for a serious cause- Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day!

Each of our therapists will be wearing a wonderfully Christmassy jumper today. Whether it's flashy or the ugliest thing they could bear to wear, everyone will be donating £2 to Save the Children for the privilege. 

If you would like to support us, please text TEAMMWORDS to 70050. You will be billed £2 plus standard rate text message. Save the Children receive 100% of your donation. To see what work this amazing charity does, please click here.

Or you could join us... Go on. Slip in to something sparkly, share on social media using #christmasjumperday and donate.

Lego® Therapy: Teaching Teachers to Play

Over two very successful sessions, Magic Words provided training for Learning Support and Teaching Staff who were eager to understand how Lego® groups could be utilised in a way to support their pupils' needs. The group came together from various school settings based in Milton Keynes and the surrounding areas.

Amongst some enjoyable practicals and video examples of therapy sessions, we covered: 

• History and research on the development of Lego®-based practices

• The communication pyramid 

• Language and Social Skills

• Job-roles: Builder, Supplier, Architect, Facilitator, Examiner

• Who should do each role?

• Lego® rules

• Discussion of how to facilitate a group

• What a typical session looks like

• Visual timetable

• Evaluation of progress

• Question-time with a qualified speech and language therapist

We received some encouraging feedback from several of the staff to the effect that they would be running their own Lego® groups as soon as possible. It would appear that Lego®Therapy is not only extremely accessible for our children, but is an inviting scheme for the adults facilitating social growth and communicative needs.

This particular continuous professional development training was arranged in association with PEP:MK, Primary Enrichment Partnership. For further dates, please visit their website here.  

Alternatively, we can provide direct training adapted to your needs. Please contact us to learn more.