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Re: A good book for training the autistic child at home
HayBMum,
I agree that it is more difficult to teach Chinese at home than English. In fact, when the social worker and government nurse recommended us to focus on one language, they recommended Chinese/Cantonese because it is much easier for the child to pick up English at a later stage. Besides, there are numerous private English tutors or English courses available. On the other hand, Chinese is not so structured and it is better for the child to learn it from a Chinese school rather than from home. There are also not many Chinese tutors.
But for us we had no choice. My husband doesn't speak much Cantonese. He can't read Chinese characters. Our maid's Cantonese is also limited. So we had to use English as our common and official language at home, although nobody's mother tongue is English. I can already foresee that our girl's Cantonese/Chinese would not be as good as children of her age. She would need to learn it as her second language. In fact, I may even skip Cantonese and let her learn Mandarin directly. It is a painful decision that my daughter can't speak my mother tongue, or can't speak it well. But considering her overall development and the future usefulness of the different languages, I am willing to swallow my pride.
If you have started teaching your son in Chinese, just continue doing so. I think it is more important to solidify the child's foundation, get him communicating well before introducing another language. (I wish I knew this before!) Don't regret on your decision. As I said, I think it is much easier to catch up one's English than one's Chinese.
You mentioned It's too late to switch the channel again for him as he can speak some single word in Chinese now. This also happened to us. Our girl spoke mostly Cantonese before we switched to English. Now (6 or 7 weeks later) she speaks mostly English, apart from the words that I taught her from long time ago. When I say "wash hands", she would go and wash hands. When she wants to wash hands, she would say it in Cantonese. Or when I say "feet", she would point to her feet. When she says feet, she would say it in Cantonese. Probably our children don't say it, but they know a lot more than we think they do.
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