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Autism and bilingualism

Toyohashi

Hello,

My wife and I are wrestling with the difficult question of whether it is necessary to expose our 4 year old autistic boy to Japanese only, or continue as we have bilingually. We live in Japan, and are both fully bilingual. We speak English at home, and our children attend a Japanese nursery.

Our son's language development has been very slow, and this has worried my wife to the point that she feels we may need to give up on English for a while.
Orthodox thinking in Japan is that concentrating 100% on Japanese first until it is established is best. However, recent research suggests that autistic children's Japanese does not suffer from being exposed to a second language. 
Is there anyone out there who has tried successfully to raise an autistic child bilingually? If there were any examples it would be very encouraging for us.

Parents

  • hi - language can be a problem for some with autism.  I'm no expert in answering your question but perhaps trying to learn 2 languages wd be tougher than 1?  When my son was little there was a child in his class who had difficulties learning language.  His parents spoke a different language from english.  English only was spoken in school.  His teacher believed this added to his difficulties.  However this is all I know so apart from suggesting there may be more research you can look at, this is all I can tell you.  bw

Reply

  • hi - language can be a problem for some with autism.  I'm no expert in answering your question but perhaps trying to learn 2 languages wd be tougher than 1?  When my son was little there was a child in his class who had difficulties learning language.  His parents spoke a different language from english.  English only was spoken in school.  His teacher believed this added to his difficulties.  However this is all I know so apart from suggesting there may be more research you can look at, this is all I can tell you.  bw

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