When should I seek professional help if my bilingual child does not speak or shows performance which is low for his age when compared to his bilingual peers?
(Please also see answer to question 1.) Delay in speaking and slowness in development, when compared to other bilingual peers, are two separate issues. First, bilingual children achieve their early language milestones at the same time as monolinguals. For example, they babble the same way as monolingual infants, they produce their first words around their first birthday (the typical range is roughly 10-14 months), and begin to combine words into two or three word “sentences” around two years of age (the typical range is roughly 18-26 months). Not all bilingual children meet the milestones at the same time in both languages, since they sometimes hear much more of one language than the other, but the important factor is whether they have met them in at least one language. If a bilingually-exposed child, just like a monolingually-exposed child, is delayed in achieving these early milestones, it would be advisable to have the child assessed to determine the source of the delay (please note
