Working With Monolingual Speech Therapists as a Bilingual Family
By Palabra Garden
You’ve been told your child would benefit from speech therapy. You search your insurance network, check your local referrals, and call around. The reality sinks in: the three available SLPs in your area all work in English only. None has experience with bilingual children. You face a choice: drop Spanish for the duration of therapy, compromise by sending your child to monolingual-only therapy while trying to maintain Spanish at home, or spend months searching for a bilingual SLP who may not exist within reasonable distance.
This is the situation many bilingual families face, and it’s genuinely difficult. But here’s what the research tells us, and what I see work consistently in my practice: children with speech-language disorders benefit from intervention in both languages. Dropping Spanish — even temporarily “just for therapy” — is not necessary and often undermines progress both in therapy and at home.
What this post covers
- Why Dropping Spanish Is Not the Answer (Even Though It Might Seem Like It)
- What to Ask Your Monolingual SLP
- Your Role as the Bilingual Bridge
- When to Seek a Bilingual Consultation
- The Reality of Limited Resources
- Advocating for Your Child
- Key Takeaway: Bilingual Children Deserve Bilingual Support — But Monolingual Therapy Can Work
- About the Author
This post is being migrated from the previous site. The full version originally appeared on palabragarden.com.