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From: Brian Humphrey
Date: 16 Oct 2007
Time: 09:42:55 -0500
Remote Name: 137.52.96.230
Nancy B. wrote: When a child stutters and is bilingual is it better to talk in one language or is it okay to talk in both? - - - - - Nancy, so far it looks like children who are bilingual do okay with appropriate stuttering intervention. - - - - - --- Way back in the twentieth century, I spent some time collaborator doing bilingual assessments of Hmong children. Some of them stuttered, and we managed to conduct appropriate assessments. Later on, I had a bilingual English-Spanish boy on my caseload. whoes parents were both bilingual. They chose to have him treated in English. Fluency in Spanish improved too. Before I could put a case study together, he was ready for dismissal. - - - - - Subsequently I studied four adults who were assessed bilingually, treated in English and monitored in either Spanish or French. All made significant gains in the untreated language, without specific instructions to transfer their training. --- I think it is a great idea to assess bilingual clients in both languages, via a bilingual slp or via an interpreter trained to paraticipate in fluency evaluations. - - - - - In order to ensure that children improve in both languages, it would be good to provide treatment in both languages if available. BH