In a community where English is the dominant language, it can be difficult to introduce a minority/heritage language to your children. “Heritage language” is a term used to identify languages other than the dominant language in a community.  In this post, I will relate to my own experience introducing French to my children in an English-dominant community. However, if you are reading this and you speak a different heritage language, I strongly encourage you to listen to two podcasts on the Bilingual Avenue: episodes 41 and 51 with Marianna Du Bosque.

Growing up as a child in a French Catholic home, I was exposed to many French cultural events and traditions. We made taffy (“tire”) in November for St. Catherine’s Day, we ate meat pies or “tourtières”, we even had a big feast in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve called the “Réveillon”. Many of my aunts and uncles sang folk songs while playing spoons (yes, I mean kitchen spoons!) and various instruments. I cherish those memories and try to pass them on to my own children. I also have fond memories of trying to figure out the meaning of my mother’s bizarre expressions that her mom used to say. Many of those expressions lose their meaning when translated into another language so it doesn’t make sense when I try to explain them in English. For some reason, they are important to me and are often shared by my Franco-Ontarian friends.

It wasn’t until I was in a relationship with my husband that I discovered the power of culture. It was sometimes difficult to explain certain traditions and why they held a special place in my heart. My husband also has his traditions, shared by many of the English speakers around us. When two people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds meet, there needs to be a compromise. It’s inevitable. Both bring into the relationship different backgrounds, experiences and expectations. Things get a bit complicated when children are added to the mix. It’s one thing to decide on the languages that will be used, it’s a whole other story to decide on the cultures and religions. The book “Mixed Blessings: A Guide to Multicultural and Multiethnic Relationships” by Rohda Berlin and Harriet Cannon is a great resource. It talks about how couples can bring different languages, cultures and religions to their relationship without conflict as well as the importance of respecting each other’s cultures associated with the languages and making compromises. You can listen to Harriet Cannon on Episode 41 of the Bilingual Avenue entitled “Strategies to help you navigate multicultural and multiethnic family relationships” to get great tips.

In my mind, a heritage language comes with a suitcase full of traditions and a whole lot of culture. It’s not just the linguistic code that we speak; it’s everything that comes with it that has been passed down from generation to generation. I have also seen it skip a generation; where parents come from a home in which the heritage language was spoken but for whatever reason it was not passed on. In hopes to give the gift of the heritage language and culture to their own children, they decide to raise them bilingual and bicultural, even if they themselves don’t speak the heritage language. In these situations, parents often have to rely on grandparents and on the school system to teach the language and the culture. In fact, many of my kids’ classmates are third generation heritage-language speakers whose parents don’t speak the language (or are not fluent).

Many families, just like mine, decide to raise their children bilingual and bicultural. Choosing to introduce your child to one of the partner’s heritage language is not always a decision that involves a whole lot of thought. However, it’s not that easy and it takes persistence and commitment. I think it’s also important to talk to our children about the cultures at a young age. Explain why both sides of the family don’t quite do things the same way. Children can only gain from being exposed to different cultures. Once children are a bit older, say 5-years-old and up, you can start explaining why the heritage language holds a special place in your house. You will find that it becomes part of their daily life and ends up being a natural occurrence for them. I often get approached by young monolingual English-speaking children in the park or elsewhere who ask me “Why does your little girl speak French?”. This reminds me that not all children learn two languages and it’s our job as parents to give reasons to our children as to why it’s important. Let your child be an active participant in his or her own language-learning journey. Your child will eventually realize that you have provided them with the dual gift of languages and cultures.  

It is also important to be committed to the heritage language. As I talked about it in my previous post, it is our job as parents to make sure that our child gets enough exposure to that language. That’s not always easy in an English dominant community. The Multilingual Parent Website has some very useful tips on how to motivate your child to speak the minority language. Click here to find out more. More importantly, make that language FUN! If your child attends school in the heritage language, try to set some time aside to have fun activities in that language instead of reserving it only for homework. It is also important to go on trips to an area or even a country where the members of that community speak the heritage language. Exposure, exposure, exposure, mixed in with a spoonful of fun and a dash of open-mindedness is a great recipe for success when raising your child bilingual and bicultural!

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for my next post on my experience with the dual diagnosis of DLD and ADHD which will be posted May 19th 2015.

By Chantal Mayer-Crittenden, 2015.
 

In this post, I would like to briefly touch on bilingualism and language impairment.  That is to say, can children with language impairments successfully learn more than one language? As a speech and language pathologist, parents often ask me this question about their children, especially when it comes to choosing the language of instruction. It’s not an easy answer to give. It really depends on many factors, lets start first with what some of the experts have found.

In my practice, I often fall back on the work of two researchers: Dr. Kathryn Kohnert, speech and language pathologist and professor at the University of Minnesota and Dr. Fred Genesee, psychologist and professor at McGill University. Dr. Kohnert talks about the essential elements that are inherently related to the acquisition of a language. Language skills are developed in terms of Means, Opportunities and Motives. She calls it “MOM”. The individual must have, first and foremost, the Means to learn a language. That is, unimpaired cognitive, sensory, social, emotional, and neurobiological systems. Any deficiencies within these systems may cause difficulties in the acquisition and use of language. Second, Opportunities that offer a rich linguistic environment as well as positive Opportunities allowing for the acquisition and use of a particular language for rewarding communicative interactions must be present. Finally, the Motivation that may come from various sources is of ultimate importance: be it internal or external resources, environmental needs, opportunities and preferences associated with various social contexts. All these factors play an essential role in the acquisition and maintenance of language among children. Be it a first language or a second language.  Children with specific language impairments have no frank neurological impairments, which means that they too can learn two languages if they are provided with opportunities and if they are MOTIVATED to learn both languages.

In most cases, the children that I work with have the Means. However, because we live in a predominantly English community, it’s often the Opportunities and the Motives that are not up to par when children are also learning a minority language. This is especially true when almost all of the adults who speak the minority language also speak the majority language… Children sometimes just don’t see the need to put so much effort into learning the minority language. It is therefore our job, as parents, clinicians and educators, to ensure that children understand WHY they are learning two languages and give them reasons to WANT to speak BOTH languages.

Dr. Genesee talks more about what is required for learning a second language. It’s as simple as TLC. After all, everyone needs a bit of Tender, Loving Care! However, for him, TLC stands for Thoughtful, Long-term Commitment and Creating an additive learning environment. He actually gave a very interesting lecture called “Early childhood bilingualism: Perils and Possibilities” on the Minerva series where he describes these elements in detail. You can listen to his podcast here. I will summarize them briefly for you but I do recommend you listen to the podcast.

Thoughtful essentially represents that our job as parents is to plan our child’s language learning experiences so that our children obtain adequate exposure to both (all) languages. We need to make decisions about who uses what language and when as well as provide continuous and regular exposure to both languages. Bilingualism is a Long-term commitment. Parents need to be prepared and stick with it as well as make long-term arrangements that will ensure continuous exposure to both languages. It is important for parents to not change strategies or schools without serious thought. Finally, Dr. Genesee talks about creating an additive learning environment. The learning environment is crucial. While children have the capacity for dual language competence in the long run, it is not automatic and depends on the quality of the input. Parents need to be confident and to highlight the positive aspects of being bilingual. Creating opportunities to expand language learning such as playgroups, family holidays, regular visits with family members who speak the heritage language, etc. is of the utmost importance. Even when family members live far away, a lot can be done via Skype or Face Time. Here is a link to one parent’s blog who gives insightful ideas on how to make the most of Skype. Last but not least, we need to advocate for our child’s bilingualism. If we don’t, no one else will!

To the question: Is bilingualism and SLI a walk in the park?, I answer “No”. But - there’s always a ‘but’ - neither is monolingualism and SLI. Children with SLI have difficulty learning language. Period. Be it one language or two, they will struggle. Bilingualism is possible and it is worth it if the two languages are valued in the family. For bilingual children who have SLI, the answer is not as simple as dropping one language. Nor should it be. The heritage language is just that: part of a child’s heritage. We need to remember that bilingualism isn’t always a choice, it’s intrinsically linked to our culture and it’s a way of life. Did you know that there are more bilingual speakers in the world than there are monolingual speakers? Yet we always seem to think that bilingualism is an exceptional thing! It’s not rocket science, we just need lots of patience and TLC! Like Marianna Du Bosq often says on her Bilingual Avenue Podcast: Bilingualism is a marathon, not a sprint! Embrace your child’s bilingualism especially if the minority language is part of your heritage. There are a lot of resources out there, many of which I will share on this blog in future posts. Thanks for reading!

My next post will be on May 4th: "What IS a Heritage Language and Why is it Sometimes Difficult to Learn?"

Thank you for reading my first post published on March 21st 2015. I have gotten some very positive feedback and I thank you for that. The goal of this post is to write about the struggles my husband and I faced as parents when trying to determine the source of our daughter's difficulties in school, how we overcame those struggles and to share some resources that helped explain what we were going through. Diagnosing a child with specific language impairment (SLI) can be quite challenging, especially in a bilingual setting. However, before stepping into the world of bilingualism, I thought I should explain the nature of SLI as well as share with you my personal journey through the diagnostic process.

What is SLI? Well, simply put, SLI is a deficit in language ability that cannot be attributed to problems of hearing, neurological status, nonverbal intelligence, or other known factors (Leonard, 2014), and is found in approximately 7% of the population. Children have difficulties producing language or understanding language, or both, in it's oral and written forms. It is just as common as ADHD and dyslexia and more common than autism, yet very few people know about it due to it's often silent symptoms. In an effort to inform the larger public, Bishop and collaborators (2012) launched an internet campaign for raising awareness of language learning impairments (RALLI). This can be found on YouTube, and is very informative for researchers, parents and teachers as well as children who have SLI. I have included one of the many YouTube videos in this post. I will post on SLI more specifically in the near future so stay tuned.

My first "real-life" introduction to SLI was with my daughter. I had worked with a child who had SLI, as a clinician, but didn't actually "live" it for myself. My daughter is the middle child of three children, 9, 7 and 5. Needless to say, the first 4 years of her life were very busy, with a brother who is 22 months older and a sister, only 20 months younger. It wasn't until junior kindergarten, when she was 4 years of age, that I suspected she was having difficulties learning language. Coming from an experienced speech-language pathologist, this is a little bit embarrassing. I often asked myself "how could I have missed this?". Come to think of it, her early years are a bit of a blur, mostly due to major sleep deprivation as young parents! Her difficulties were not as obvious as I would have expected of a child with SLI. But then again, she is the middle child... maybe I didn't pay enough attention. She was screened by her school board speech and language pathologist with some mild concerns but nothing that merited a full assessment. Nevertheless, she was coming home on a weekly basis with notes relating to her learning. These notes would often frustrate my husband and I because they seemed to become more and more negative and sent the message that her teacher was becoming increasingly frustrated with our daughter as time went by. Even though we both knew that was not the intent. Her teacher had taught our son and so we knew her quite well. She was a fabulous teacher. My daughter had a difficult time learning the sounds of the letters, couldn't follow complex directions, she sometimes lacked initiative and wrote her name wrong for months, even years! Sometimes perfectly backwards, like the word ECNALUBMA on an EMS vehicle. However, she had great friends (most were friends she had made in daycare since the age of 18 months) and was happy to go to school, so it didn't seem so bad. In fact, she has always been a very happy, go lucky child. That's what makes her shine!

In the summer after junior kindergarten, she participated in my doctoral study pertaining to the linguistic competencies of bilingual children. She was supposed to be one of the typically developing children...so I thought. She was formally assessed by my colleague. After assessing over 100 kids in both French and English, her scores were compared to the mean scores obtained from all the other children.... she scored below 1.5 standard deviations from the mean (below average) on several subtests. This, along with the past year's struggles and teacher observations made it clear to me that my daughter had a language impairment. Senior kindergarten was very much the same as junior kindergarten. This is when we initiated the referral to have her assessed by a psychometrist, in order to determine whether or not she had a learning disability. But the wait list we were told was 2 years long. Luckily, a good friend of mine is an occupational therapist, so I asked her if she could assess her fine-motor skills to see if there could be an underlying cause to her written language difficulties. My friend recommended that she be seen by an optometrist who specializes in visual-perceptual deficits. Low and behold, she was diagnosed with a visual-perceptual disorder. So we had some activities to do at home to help her with that. This also partly explained her clumsiness, which is now just part of who she is and is in fact, quite common in children who have SLI. 

By this time, she had been seen by two optometrists who both recommended she wear glasses as she was far sighted just like her father. Unfortunately, she refused to wear her glasses, so that just became another daily battle. My daughter was still struggling with her letters, sounds and now numbers. But we persevered by providing her with extra help. We also suspected she might have ADD, since it was in the family. She had a move and sit cushion in class (a cushion that allows a child to move around on their seat without disrupting others), which seemed very helpful when she felt fidgety. She still uses it today! She was followed by a pediatrician but a formal diagnosis could not be made until the age of 6-years. Her teachers and I completed the Vanderbilt ADHD questionnaire and it was clear from the results that she had ADD. It wasn't until 3/4 of the way through first grade that she received a formal diagnosis from her pediatrician. I will talk about this topic of dual diagnosis in another post since I just can't fit it all into this one!!! 

My daughter was assessed by a psychometrist at the end of first grade (luckily we didn't have to wait two years after all) and the results showed some weaknesses in working memory and math, but no learning disability per say. This confirmed, once again, the diagnosis of SLI. All in all we are lucky. I knew enough to seek help from various sources and at a young age. After consulting 5 or 6 professionals, this lead to an appropriate diagnosis which helped explain why she was having such difficulties in school. It also resulted in the implementation of a formal Individual Education Plan (IEP) as well as some of the best collaborative efforts I've ever seen between teachers, speech-language pathologists, doctors, child and parents. My daughter is now in grade 2. She loves going to school and amazes us all the time. Her teacher ofter says that our daughter offers a different perspective on things. She sees things from a different angle, which adds richness to class discussions!

This experience has, undoubtedly, shaped me, both as a mom, and as a researcher. I am a true believer in the proverb "It takes a whole village to raise a child!". I have learned so much since then, and I look forward to sharing with you what I know now but wish I knew then, as well as some of the best resources I have come across. Thanks for reading!

My next post will be on April 13th, 2015: Bilingualism and SLI: A walk in the park?  

Chantal Mayer-Crittenden, 2015.

Welcome! I am so excited to finally launch this blog that I have been working on for quite some time now. This is an easy way for me to share with my fellow speech-language pathologists, as well as with other parents, my journey as a bilingual parent and as a researcher studying a very common, yet practically unknown (to the public) disorder called specific language impairment (SLI), more specifically in bilingual children who live in a linguistic minority context.

To start, let me tell you a bit about myself. I am currently an associate professor in the Speech and language pathology program at Laurentian University in Sudbury Ontario, Canada. I graduated as a Speech and Language Pathologist in 2002 and worked as a clinician for several years before joining the academia world. I was first compelled to pursue my doctoral studies while working for a French School Board, in French-medium schools, and found myself trying to determine if the children I was assessing had language difficulties that were due to a language impairment, or to the fact that they were in the process of learning a second language. More and more English-speaking children are enrolled in French-medium schools, making it increasingly difficult to make this distinction. With very few resources and a lack of standardized tools in Ontario-French, I immediately knew that I needed to find the answers outside of the clinical world, which lead me to submit my application to a PhD program. Fast forward a few years, my thesis "Second Language Learning for Majority-Language children in a Minority Context: Language Impairment or typical second language development?", which I successfully completed in 2013, focused on the assessment and the identification of children with and without SLI in a community where French is the minority language and English is the majority language. 

On a more personal level, I am a proud mother of 3 wonderful children and wife to an amazing husband. Together, we are raising our kids bilingual. My first language is French and my husband's is English. We decided even before our first child was born to introduce French as our kids' first language for the simple reason that English is easily acquired in our community since it is spoken by 70% of the population. We wanted to make sure that our kids had a good foundation in French, a minority language, before learning the majority language. It was very important for us to give our kids the gift of bilingualism. Turns out, my husband has benefited from this language structure as well. Over the past 9 years, he has come a very long way in learning French as his second language! Having spent many years in and around the French medium school systems, this is a very common scenario where one parent is French and the other English with their kids attending a French school. This allows me to see, experience and study first hand how this exact scenario impacts the learning and development of my own three children.

In order to gain a broader perspective on the topic, I have also attended several conferences all over the World whenever I can (not a bad perk since I love to travel!). I  have had the opportunity to present some of my findings at the National and International levels and have had the distinct pleasure of meeting many of the top researchers in my field. One of my most memorable meetings was with my colleague Elin Thordardottir in Cyprus back in 2009 who shares the same interests...funny how we both had to travel half way around the World in order to meet! We have since collaborated on many studies together  and she has been pivotal in helping advance my chosen study. Another very beneficial trip for me was the Bilingual-SLI Conference in Denmark in 2010. I had the privilege of attending a 2-day PhD workshop prior to the start of the conference where I was able to receive input from top researchers such as Dorothy Bishop and Katherine Kohnert, among others. More recently, in Amsterdam-Netherlands (2014), I met a PhD student who was studying under Tina Hickey and learnt that there is a very similar linguistic scenario to the one here in Ontario, except in Ireland English-speaking kids are enrolled in Irish-medium schools to learn Irish, the minority language as a second language! I knew after meeting such wonderful people that this was what I was meant to study!

I came up with the title for this blog "Bilingualism in Ontario: communication disOrders and Typical development (BOOT)" in 2013 with my graduate and undergraduate students as we were trying to find a name for our research group.  We have since created several mottos that relate to BOOT such as : "Always one step ahead"; "Innovation, one step at a time" and "An important step in SLP research". My kids came up with the concept for the logo, which I find so fitting since had it not been for them, I would not have had the drive and perseverance to study bilingualism and language impairments in a minority context like I do now.

As a speech-language pathologist (SLP), I always knew the meaning of specific language impairment (SLI), as defined in our textbooks, but I never fully understood what it "looked" like in real life. My next post will focus on how I gained insight on this disorder, both inside and out. In future posts, I will also write about learning two languages in different contexts. Living in Northern Ontario, bilingualism is often forced upon those of us who speak French as a first language. I don't even remember learning English. It just kind of happened! But what if it doesn't "just happen"? Research has shown that children with SLI can learn a second language with adequate support and exposure to both languages. In this blog, I will write about useful ways to increase input in both languages and how to overcome certain difficulties. I will also write about the importance of being involved as a parent and about the conscious commitment that parents need to make when deciding to raise their child bilingual. 

Even though French is my first language, I decided to post in English, the Lingua Franca of the world, in order to reach a larger audience. My hopes are to translate each post into French in the near future. However, in the mean time, I encourage readers to post comments or questions in both languages. Thank you for reading!