Almost 8 Year Old Getting Pronouns, Tenses, Multiples Wrong

by Sasha
(Canada)

I have almost 8 year-old twins (boy & girl). Their primary language is English but they are also in a French school (purely French, no English spoken there - my husband is French).

My daughter has some issues with speech that haven't really worried me as I always thought she'd grow out of them but now she is almost 8 and she hasn't.

She still sounds quite baby-ish when she speaks, often uses a 'w' sound instead of an 'r' - i.e. down the woad. If you stop her and correct her, she can make the correct sound. The school has brought in a speech therapist for her a couple of times and they don't seem overly concerned, and seem to think it will correct itself.

However, my main concern is that she still gets pronouns wrong (switches his and her), consistently gets some words wrong - i.e. says persons instead of people, even though I correct her all the time, and sometimes her sentence structure is wrong.

I realize that part of this could be being raised bilingually, but her twin brother doesn't have these same issues at all. She is a smart girl and does well at school, with both reading and writing.

As a background, my husband was recently diagnosed with ADHD (he's had it all along I'm sure, just not diagnosed). He speaks very quickly and quite unclearly and people often have a hard time hearing what he's saying (myself included).

I've noticed that sometimes he gets the pronunciation of words consistently wrong - i.e. he knows how to say 'heirloom' (pronounced air-loom) but then he'll suddenly say 'hairloom' instead.

He often gets people's names wrong (quite wrong). He was raised bilingually (French mother, English father) - however his sister doesn't have these issues, and speaks clearly.

I'm wondering if there is some connection between my husband's issues and my daughter's? They are quite alike in many ways.

Many thanks!