Guest guest Posted July 10, 2006 Report Share Posted July 10, 2006 Hi Darla, Just had a lovely chat with your husband. I had that argument (below) with myself too before we made our decision. But I think that no matter how hard you all try to use the same label, for example, all your therapists pick up a mug and say ‘mug’, eventually someone on the television will call it a ‘cup’ and I don’t see that that’s a million miles from another person calling it ‘puodukas’ (Lithuanian word). For ‘bye bye’ he will hear ‘goodbye’ ‘see ya’ ‘see you later’ and less common ones like ‘cheers’. As you are American perhaps he will hear even more variations and I think this will happen no matter how much you try to control it. I would include a different pronunciation of the same word to this list. So, as far as is concerned, ‘potty’ with an English accent and ‘potty’ with an American accent are two different labels for the same object. To add another variant to the list isn’t such a big deal in my humble opinion. I am a language teacher so I am familiar with the fact that there is a difference between what you will consciously teach to have in his expressive language and you will limit this of course in the early days and what he will be exposed to around him. As his language grows he will be more and more aware of what’s around him. In VB we were told to limit the variation in mands that we wish Tom to produce and make sure that they are all identical so that if he wants ‘juice’ all the therapists must say and sign ‘juice’ when prompting and not have one person calling it ‘drink’ another ‘cup’ and another ‘pear juice’ and yet another saying ‘more’ for example but, for receptive skills he MUST know that juice can be called by those other labels. And I believe it is a tiny step to add a Serbian word or two to that list. Let me know what you think. Incidentally, (I just said this on your answering machine) VB inadvertently really lends itself to bilingualism because the child learns a word with a sign and that sign can then be used with a similar word with a different meaning so we use the same sign for bed and sleep and sleeping and sleepy if I then use the same sign for ‘miegoti’, you instantly have an idea what that word means. Sara xxx Ps. By the way, I do think it will slow him down but I don’t think it would be for long and I think it would be worth it. Re: Billingual issues Sorry, Sara, I almost wrote back to re-phrase that because obviously if one person always speaks one language and another always speaks another language, that is consistent, isn't it?!! What I actually meant can perhaps be better phrased as *congruency of environment*. Please forgive me here, I have only a very cursory knowledge of all this and I'm very tired, lol. By congruency, I mean that if is being prompted to say *bye bye* by his therapists/tutors and by me and then prompted to say a different word (in a different language) in the same situation by his father, there is an incongruency there. In my rudimentary knowledge of behaviouralism this would be considered to be an impediment because of the incongruency. Does that make sense? My understanding is that it is important that the environment that has outside of his structured therapy time is congruent with the approach used during the therapy time. Please, disagree with me! I'm open to discussing this. Darla In a message dated 10/07/2006 15:16:38 GMT Standard Time, Moroza-@... writes: Hi Darla, When you say one critical aspect of the behaviouralist approach is consistency of environment, what does that mean? Sara -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.10/383 - Release Date: 07/07/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.10/383 - Release Date: 07/07/2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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