Re: moving abroad - europe

[Guest guest]

This is a favorite subject of mine so I'll gladly answer! We were living in

Germany when our 4th child - ny now 12, non-verbal - was born. We speak

English at home. He had therapy in German. Then we moved to Costa Rica and I did

home therapy with him (using the Doman method). From this method I learned that

brain-injured children (i.e., any special needs child) can learn multiple

languages just as a normal developing child can. So I taught our son to read in

German and English. I spoke to him the first few hours of each day in German so

the word card he brought me to express his desires was in German - for example

if he wanted to eat an apple (a favorite food of his!), he brought me the card

that said " Apfel " on it. Later in the day I spoke on English and so all his

communication was English. No problem switching. It was normal to him! Now he

has therapy daily in Spanish and he has adapted. People always say " oh, you'll

confuse him " but that's not true. A child who can't speak is not dumb! Most

likely he's as smart (if not smarter!) as any other child.

I say put your child in the Czech school and don't let them interpret anything

into English! We did this when we moved to Germany - our older 3 kids were ages

8,5,and 3 at the time and we just put them in school and they learned the

language in no time!

(ny almost 12)

>

> hi,

>

> we are czech american couple, and we are thinking about moving back to the

czech republic next year. our almost 6 years old son was diagnosed with mild

apraxia of speech, and currently receives speech therapy at his kindergarten.

>

> anybody has any experience getting their apraxic child speak another language?

i would love him to go to a czech school. even have found some teachers of czech

to english speaking kids, and there are speech therapies at schools available

there too.

>

> what are your opinions or experiences of living abroad with an apraxic child?

>

> thank you so very much,

> eva

>