請問有無小朋友有語言障礙之後轉左去讀國際班有好大進步?

Stockinette

Hi Lycheema,

I was in similar situation as yourself couple years back.  My son was comparatively better in English than Chinese at the age of 3 year old, just comparatively because he was able to understand and spoke some english but chinese was mostly echolia.  We got so worried and wanted to switched him from local kinder to ESF TY, we rejected ESF TY after we spoke with his local kinder principal for we felt the school care so much about him.  At 3.2 year old we took him for an assessment, he was assessed to be 1.5 year behind in speech,  autistic features and borderline developement delay.

We immediately switch to single language environment, focusing on his cantonese, though we knew his english was better but due to lack of environment support (our friends/neighbors, playgroups were cantonese speakers) we decided to abondan english.  It was the right move for us as together with 1) caring and extra help for his kinder teachers/principal 2) EETC training 3) family support   he improve drastically.  At age 4.8 months old we took him for a formal IQ and Autism test, he score fairly high on Standford Binet assessment and for was diagnose to have no autism.

At age of 5.2 year old, he almost caught with his peer group in terms of language development and he loves reading both chinese and english, he can read and understand most of the chinese characters, but english is very so so.  His english listening is okay but reading is still oxford stage 1/2, but i am happy because he enjoy reading both english and chinese books.  We originally also planned to put him in international school (coz we feel local stream enforce too much dictation and homework), but we changed our mind because we like him to know more chinese.  We chose an interactive local stream primary school for him.

Perhaps you can take him for an speech assesment to understand how much he's delay and also consider switching to single language environement whether it be english or chinese.

Last but not least, I must praise you for your decision of quitting your job to spend more time with him, it will make a world of difference!  A mother's time is way more effective than flash cards, english dvds and computer games.  This is from my own experience after switching part-time!

Stockinette

Absolutely agree with 大鴨媽's comments.

Did you take him to assessment in CAC?  CAC is the best place to go, not for the professionalism but the followup training that they provide.  

I can understand fully it'd be a hard decision for you whichever language you go for.   If I am not mistaken your boy at age 3.5 is a young boy (i.e. born Oct 2004)?  If so I like to share my experience with you as I have a small boy too (born in end of Dec. 2002).

1) Be extra cautious when you pick international school for him, different schools have different cutoff date, for example ESF all children born in the same calendar year go to the same grade, whilst ICS their cutoff date is Aug, those who born after Aug must go start school a year later.  It is best to have you child as big boy rather than young boy.  

If you choose to stick with local kinder, you have a choice to repeat K1.  My son's principal suggested he repeat N2 but we turned down the offer, if we could go back in time we would likely take her suggestions, being big boy has more  pros than cons e.g. i) closer match of speech ability with younger peers might help to boost his confidence to speak out more ii) not have to burden by homework so soon you can spend more time to play and train him iii) if you line up for government service, you get an extra year as usually government cut service once the kid start primary school (again another reason we not consider international school as kid start primary school as early as 4.9 year old).  We did not follow the principal's suggestions to repeat, though we managed but I can tell you it was extremely challenging and my hair turned gray.

2) English ST is limited, whether it be private or government.  If you choose this path make sure you secure the resources ahead of time.

Also might help to discuss with his teacher and principal, we were extremely lucky as our kinder teachers and principal never called us to complaint but rather always encourage, praise and extra help.

原文章由 大鴨媽 於 08-3-26 16:44 發表
一般有言語障礙小朋友是不適合在同一時間去處理兩種不同的language,而且一般言語治療是train廣東話的.

只要他先能掌握好一種言語先,另一種也隨之可以.

好似小兒(他是弱聽)連廣東話都未是十分好,但一學普通話卻是很 ...