problems with childhood language development

October 17, 2005 5:02 PM

I'm concerned about my oldest nephew's language development.

He's nearly 6, the oldest of 3 boys (the others are nearly 3 and nearly 1). He's a delight -- very bright and funny, loves art, and is unusually empathetic and sensitive. In a few ways, though, his language skills seem to be pretty far behind his chronological age. His vocabulary and acutal speech abilities seem normal for his age to me, but he's still pretty shaky with the alphabet, and his grammar/syntax seems more like his little brother's. For example, he's never learned to use subjects ("he") instead of objects ("him") all the time, and is shaky with plurals/tenses/etc., leading to sentences like "him are going to the store" instead of "he is going to the store" or "thems is at school yesterday" for "they were at school yesterday."

I suspect that some of this is due, at least in part, to my sister and BIL deciding not to "overwhelm" the kids with educational toys while as they've been growing up (my sister feels that she and I, who could both read by 4, were intellectually pushed too hard as kids, and so she decided to do pretty much the opposite of everything my parents did). As a result, it feels like the oldest was unchallenged in a lot of ways as he was developing language, and now finds himself in kindergarten speaking in a much "younger" way than his peers. (It also doesn't help that he's so tall for his age that he's often mistaken for a 7 or 8-year-old.)

My sister and BIL have expressed some concern (and guilt) over this, as well as frustration that his school doesn't seem to be helping much -- I think they were hoping that he would just sort of soak up his ABCs/reading/grammar by virtue of being in school and around other kids, but it doesn't seem to be happening at the pace they were expecting. (I don't know exactly how much they were just assuming would happen at school vs. how much they've actually discussed the matter directly with his teachers; I have a hunch that's it's been more of the former rather than the latter.) Could anyone recommend any books, educational approaches, etc. that might be helpful? Speaking from experience, my sister is likely to be more willing to address this head-on if I can offer her some concrete titles, ideas, schools of thought, etc. than if I just say I'm concerned about the situation. Thanks!

posted by scody to writing & language (18 comments total)

P.S. I realize that it sounds like I'm blaming my sister/BIL for the problem, which I don't really mean to do -- I just wanted to include those details in case any childhood development experts out there might find them relevant.
posted by scody at 5:18 PM on October 17, 2005

His parents must discuss this with his teachers, and soon. They should ask for an evaluation. Your nephew's speech delays could be due to hearing problems, developmental issues, or something much less dramatic. His parents have the right to ask for an assessment, and it sounds like they ought to do that.
posted by tizzie at 5:22 PM on October 17, 2005

Does anyone ever correct him? How does he react?
posted by ulotrichous at 5:39 PM on October 17, 2005

I'm not a childhood development expert (but I am the parent of a 7 year old), so take this as you will:

I think it's highly unlikely that a lack of educational toys would have any effect on your nephew's grasp of grammar - most kids learn that through conversation and being read to. One low-stress intervention is to repeat things back to him correctly: "Him are going to the store." "Oh, he is going to the store now?" The thinking is that modeling the correct grammar is better than directly correcting him.

If he's not picking it up in school, you might suggest that his parents have him evaluated. If he goes to a public school, they should provide and pay for professional assessment, and for whatever services are recommended as a result of that assessment - speech therapy, classroom assistance, anything. There are federal laws involved if he has a learning or other disability, and federal funds for school districts to provide these services. If he goes to private school, the school should be able to recommend someone, but your sister's family will have to pay for it.

Email me (in profile) if you want to hear more about public schools and the assessment process.
posted by expialidocious at 5:45 PM on October 17, 2005

Here's one article that might help shed some insight: Enhancing the Language Development of Young Children. One quote stands out, and reinforces my own understanding of how children learn:

But during the preschool years, parents and caregivers sometimes think that children regress rather than make linguistic progress. That is because preschoolers are learning that language has rules. As children learn these rules they tend to make errors because they overregularize the rules. Therefore, children generalize that if houses means more than one house, then mouses must mean more than one mouse. Similarly, if we played and hopped, we must have also have runned and falled. The errors actually represent progress because the child is thinking about the structure of the language.

Based on the description of your nephew (and as a parent of two kids, 8 and 5), I honestly don't think I'd be too worried about it. Have your sister and brother-in-law talk about it with your nephew's teacher, but trust than any exceptionally bright child will be able to make up any developmental gaps during their first couple of years of school.
posted by RKB at 5:50 PM on October 17, 2005

I am not a language acquisition expert and so can't comment on whether anything is wrong, but I am a linguist and know enough linguistics to comment on some parts of the post.

I think they were hoping that he would just sort of soak up his ABCs/reading/grammar by virtue of being in school and around other kids, but it doesn't seem to be happening at the pace they were expecting.

You are conflating reading, a learned unnatural non-innate activity, with grammar, an automatically acquired innate part of the human brain. Children acquire language without anyone needing to teach them anything, and I don't think there's any evidence that trying to teach a child a language has any effect. In fact, there's quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. Children simply do not react to corrections of their grammar - by a natural, staged process, they should eventually acquire the language without any effort or outside control. Educational toys also will not have an effect on the acquisition of grammar. Reading, on the other hand, they need to be taught (like, for instance, addition).

There are disabilities that would affect both processes, and these I know nothing about. If the parents are concerned, they should take the child to a speech pathologist/therapist or some such person (as expialidocious says, the school may be able to supply this).

It is a fact that children learn grammar at different rates, a process that concludes basically around 10 years plus or minus 2 (or so?), and the different rates have nothing to do with things like intelligence. At any point in time during the acquisition process, the child's grammar may contain what sound to an adult speaker like errors. These should not be assumed to be errors, as they are likely just as systematic as what an adult would be doing. Eventually, if all goes well, the "errors" will systematically change to the correct adult versions.

Given what little I know, the examples you gave do not sound like a major cause for alarm. You say he has problems with grammar/syntax, but the fact is that in the sentences you transcribed, the word order (syntax) is exactly right for English, and this I know is on track. The errors are actually morphological (it is not that he is using objects for subjects, but that he is not putting subjects in the nominative case, something that only shows up in English in the case of pronouns). I don't know anything about the acquisition of morphology unfortunately, but it doesn't seem surprising that this stuff is not yet fixed by age 6.
posted by advil at 6:03 PM on October 17, 2005

p.s. I didn't emphasize enough that learning reading is an entirely different matter from grammar - this is something it may not be in the child's best interests to leave for them to soak up at school.
posted by advil at 6:06 PM on October 17, 2005

I also work in linguistics (and also am not specifically a language acquisition expert) and while I'd disagree with certain of advil's characterizations of the acquisition process, I whole-heartedly agree with the main point: this is not an education problem, it's a developmental problem. It seems unlikely that your nephew's parents gave him a truly linguistically impoverished early environment (for example, locking him in the basement and exposing him to mere moments of human conversation every day), so there's something else going on here.

Do you think, in these circumstances, that your sister and your brother-in-law would still respond best to concrete book recommendations and things of that sort? There must be good books for the layman/parent on how best to approach school districts for effective evaluations and that sort of thing. I don't know any great ones, myself, but would suggest that this avenue would be a good way to go.
posted by redfoxtail at 6:38 PM on October 17, 2005

As for the "cause for alarm" issue -- yeah, it's hard to tell from these examples. But if you and his parents and other people all get a strong overall impression that he's talking like a substantially younger kid, then it seems plausible, at least, that something's up. People are often better at noticing patterns of this kind of thing than they are at picking out the very best examples of it.
posted by redfoxtail at 6:41 PM on October 17, 2005

It's not clear to me what the level of concern is, here, but I can say that cases like this get referred to pediatric neurologists for evaluation all the time.

Language delay is not something that's due to the way your kids were raised. Whether grammar is innate or not I don't know, but I do know that spoken language is ubiquitous and that all normal, healthy children learn the rules of the spoken language they're exposed to without any special effort on the part of the parents.

I'd put a word in for evaluation sooner rather than later; child might have something easy to fix, like hearing impairment.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:49 PM on October 17, 2005

I don't know anything about the acquisition of morphology unfortunately, but it doesn't seem surprising that this stuff is not yet fixed by age 6.

I too agree with most of that succinct overview of language aquisition. But I also taught kindergarten, first, and second grade for a few years, and I can say that a child who is still speaking this way at age 6 is extremely unusual. If he were a student of mine, I'd be watching closely and probably would have recommended evaluation for developmental delays.
posted by Miko at 8:05 PM on October 17, 2005

Thanks for the feedback so far, everyone. To start with redfoxtail's query: yep, it's definitely something people (teachers, other adults, and even some other kids) have been commenting on for awhile, even (as redfoxtail notes) I may not have given the best example. My sister has mentioned that my nephew himself has started to notice (with embarrassment) that he talks "like a little kid," so it really does seem to be something more than the expected "mouse"/"mouses" type of error that's mentioned in RKB's article.

Expialidocious's example of "modeling" the correct sentence is a good suggestion -- I've done that a few times (but not consistently), and I think others have as well; he sometimes gets flustered, sometimes he carefully repeats the correct sentence back, and other times it doesn't seem to register to him that I've said it differently. My sister's tended to avoid too much direct correction of him, though, because he does have a tendency to be easily upset when he's embarrassed or feels he's being put on the spot.

I appreciate the distinction between reading and language acquisition, too, as well as the feedback that whatever the problem is it's not likely been caused by lack of LeapFrog pads or whatever it is that all the kids have these days. My sister's household is definitely a very verbal one, with lots of reading every day, so he's certainly not been starved of linguistic stimulation in general.

I do still have a hunch that my sister/BIL respond best to reading about the topic (she's a historian/professor, he's an attorney -- it's just how they're wired, methinks!) as the impetus to approach the school for testing/evaluation. (He goes to a private school, by the way.) I have a very strong feeling that if I just suggest to my sister that he needs to be evaluated by the school, it won't happen -- but if I give her a book (or at least a title), she'll use that as the starting point to get the evaluation ball rolling. (Having said that, I am still going to mention to her what folks have said in this thread about getting him an evaluation, at the very least just to get it on the table.) So yes, if anyone knows of any good books on this topic for the layman, it would still be really helpful.
posted by scody at 8:08 PM on October 17, 2005

(He goes to a private school, by the way.)

This is important. I don't know about the school in question, but private schools in general -- even very elite ones -- are often much less equipped to screen and follow up on developmental issues like this. They just don't normally have the infrastructure, since they aren't required by law to work with the broad-spectrum student population. If a kid isn't making it, they have little choice but to refer him out. And because of that, there are fewer professionals within the school who have the skills and background to spot and pursue problems like this. Teachers do the best they can, but the result is often that problems are dealt with complacently for too long. In addition, with private school there is that oddly intimate sense of parent entitlement that sometimes means teachers are reluctant to state the case for need as strongly as it should be stated. They don't want to offend the parents; they'd rather the parent take the lead in addressing these issues.

The school I taught in was private, as well (and elite) - we had some kids with really serious need who were not getting the kind of teaching they required to succeed. So be alert to that.
posted by Miko at 8:22 PM on October 17, 2005

Schools can take a VERY long time to go through the evaluation process. I suggest that the parents speak to their pediatrician about their concerns - this should quickly get them started. This isn't something they should ignore or take their time with; early intervention is important (not only for his speech but for his self-esteem); I think the books on the subject should be read AFTER evaluation has begun. I agree with others that this isn't a home enviroment issue, but a developmental one. I hope they aren't feeling ashamed, it's a common issue (2 of my 3 have been evaluated because of red flags, luckily no problems). If this is simply a speech delay that he needs a little help with, the evaluators will have the best advice.

If she has to have a book: Does My Child Have a Speech Problem?
posted by LadyBonita at 8:36 PM on October 17, 2005

I've worked with three year olds who were having difficulty forming correct past tense verbs, which seems fairly normal for that age. I would model correct phrasing in a completely nonthreatening way during conversation, like:
Me: "What did you do today, Mikey?"
Him: "I goed to the store."
Me: "You went to the store? Fun! Did you buy anything?"
Him: "I buyed a toy."
Me: "You bought a toy! Can I see it?" etc. etc. etc.

I'll also join the chorus of people who have said that educational toys or lack therof are not the issue here. If his parents are talking to each other in his presence, and talking to him, he's absorbing it naturally. Drilling him on the ABCs or correcting every speech error he makes would likely not make any difference with this kind of thing.
posted by bonheur at 9:16 PM on October 17, 2005

he needs professional evaluation ... it's not a cause for alarm, but it is a cause for concern ... they should not just assume that he's going to grow out of it
posted by pyramid termite at 9:32 PM on October 17, 2005

I can say that a child who is still speaking this way at age 6 is extremely unusual.

Yeah, I definitely shouldn't have tried to say anything about this before, I was overreaching my working knowledge.

However, it occurred to me that I have a bunch of intro to ling. textbooks sitting around that actually give numbers (numbers that are extremely simplistic, and shouldn't be taken to diagnose anything!). Agreement systems (e.g. number agreement) are typically learned by about 2.5 years, and in languages with rich case systems, these case systems are typically learned between 1.5 and 2.5 years. English (which does not have a rich case system) may be somewhat slower but probably not much. Case errors of the kind the poster describes (accusative pronouns in subject position) are very common in English acquisition, but common at a much younger age than 6. Overall the claim is that a child's grammar is typically only stylistically different from an adult's grammar by the age of 4.
posted by advil at 11:43 PM on October 17, 2005

Thanks again, everyone -- I've marked several responses as "best answer," but it's all been very helpful! I'm going to speak with my sister in the next couple of days about getting my nephew evaluated.
posted by scody at 10:37 AM on October 18, 2005