Juanita Said:

Bilingual families – your opinion needed.?

We Answered:

This is really a very sad situation. The poor child should have been in speech therapy regularly for the past few years. The longer speech problems go without therapy, the harder it is to correct them.

While it's great that her mother can understand her, she needs to think about the frustration this causes her daughter when others can't understand.

I'm not sure about what would or wouldn't be offensive to her spanish speaking mother, but then it seems she finds the whole idea of speech therapy offensive.

I think it's great that they are working on the spanish in school, but really, they need to help her with her english as well, as that is the language that is dominant here in our country, and will help her later on as well.

Speech problems do not resolve themselves. My brother had a terrible speech delay as a child. He started speech therapy at 3 yrs old. He's now 30 and still can't pronounce the word "milk" correctly, that's not the only word that gives him grief. This has also affected his ability to spell, as if you unsure about how a word is pronounced, or unable to pronounce it correctly, it's hard to guess at it's spelling.

I think the best thing to do, is consult a speech therapist, regarding what is best for the child. What will help her in the long run. I can see why it's important for her to be able to speak and understand Spanish, but she also needs to be able to speak English.

Good luck.