Advice for parents who have children with Speech and Language difficulties for whom English is an additional language.

Things you can do to help your child:

• Continue speaking in your own language at home
• Keep words and gestures consistent
• Keep language simple, use lots of repetitions and speak clearly
• Use gestures, facial expressions and body language along with speech
• Encourage all attempts to communicate
• Share nursery rhymes and stories from your culture/language with your school
• Play word association games e.g: think of the names of five fruits, animals etc. This will help in improving your child’s vocabulary

Advice for Education Staff/Parents regarding Children who are acquiring their additional language within normal limits.

• Parents should be encourage to speak the language that they feel can provide the best speech and language model
• Supporting the development of the home language will enhance the learning of English
• It is alright for children to speak in their home language in school and mix their native language and English in a sentence.
• The quality of parent-child interaction is most important
• Children learning an additional language may say nothing for a very months as they go through a silent period. This is a natural process
• Give the child sufficient time to listen and become familiar with the new language (English) in school
• Bilingualism has a positive influence on the child’s development
• Concepts learnt in their native language can be transferred to other languages
• Recent research suggests that learning to speak more than one language has a positive impact on the child’s cognitive development.

http://www.londonsigbilingualism.co.uk/

Useful tips on facilitating speech and language development in young children.

Here are some tips on how parents/carers can support their child’s speech and language development:

• Use short and simple sentences
• Comment about the activity that your child is engaged in
• Help your child to build their vocabulary by introducing new words in a meaningful context
• Role-play and other play activities are fun ways of exploring communication in children
• Use gestures, body language, facial expressions along with speech to improve child’s understanding of spoken language
• Be a good listener. Give your child adequate time/opportunities to respond
• Create a need to communicate by encouraging your child to make choices, pretending not to understand, pointing out towards objects, asking yes/no questions.
• provide a good speech and language model.
• Include fun activities (e.g. Simon says) for gross body imitation, non-speech sounds as well as speech sounds in your daily routines. Mirrors are great for children while engaged in the imitation task.
• Praise your child for all attempts in communication. A hug, smile, happy face, thumbs up can all have positive effects.
• Seek help early if your child has difficulty understanding or speaking
• Read to your child daily. Story time is very effective in building a special bond between parents/carers and children.
• Practise at home to help your child to carry over targets from school.  
• Please do not force your child to talk.
• Maintain a communication book and make a note of your child’s achievements, strengths and needs which can be shared with teachers