[Eugenesmom]

We are hoping to adopt from Columbia and have put our age deesired as 0-2 years. Are many people in Columbia bilingual (and so the child has experience with English) or will learning a new language be very difficult?

[alex]

Most children are infants that come to the US from Colombia. There isn't any language problem there. When we were there the older children were all going to other countries.

To be adopted in the US the child has to be an "orphan." They can only have one parent or they don't have any parents. Older children more often fall outside of this definition. They can be adopted in Europe more easily. Private orphanages seemed to have newborns to 18 months old or so going to the US at least when we were there last year.

There are a lot of people who speak English available in Colombia. They have some of our TV programs and movies with Spanish subtitles. Our agency here had a coordinator for us in Colombia also. She has excellent English and she arranged drivers for us for appiontments and things.

I speak some Spanish but my husband does not. We were very comfortable as far as language. A few key phrases never hurt though!
Good Luck!

W

[crathke]

Eugene's Mom--

at the age of 0-2, your child should be able to "switch" fairly easily from one language to another. We brought our son home at the age of 31 months and now, six months later, he is at about a 2-year old level and taking huge leaps forward daily. He understood nearly everything we said (including multiple directives--'pick that up and put it there') within the first six weeks.

We expect that by Christmas he will be "age appropriate" linguistically.

Our frustration was that Spanish was not his first language--so the little bit that we did know didn't help us in the least.

[sak9645]

the children speak a language that is even more different from English. I met my daughter in China when she was 18.5 months old.

By the end of the first WEEK, while we were still in her birth city, she was saying, "Hi" and "Bye-Bye" in English. By the time we arrived at Dulles Airport in Virginia (and she'd been with me about 10 days), she had added "OK". A few "babytalk" words came next, like "du-du" for "doggy" and "Ba-ba" for "Becca", but real and well pronounced words came rapidly thereafter.

By the time I had developmental testing done, a few months after we arrived home, my daughter tested ABOVE her age level in receptive language (understanding English!) and only a little behind in speech. Her fine motor skills were also a little behind, and her gross motor skills were pretty delayed, partly because she was so tiny and needed exercise. However, she was caught up in all areas by the time she was a little over age two.

Every child is different, and I can't promise you that your child will learn English as fast as Becca did. My daughter happens to be extremely verbal and good with language; she now reads and writes Hebrew, as well as English and is going into third grade in a very demanding, bilingual private school.

Your child may do better, at first, in gross motor skills than in speech, but this is not necessarily a problem. I know several very bright homegrown and adopted kids who could kick balls and such with ease as toddlers, but whose speech was not as well developed. However, they all seem to have evened out after a while. Developmental testing will ease your mind as to whether your child is progressing normally, and speech therapy is always available if your child is having problems.

I never found that Becca had trouble understanding me. Even in China, Becca derived pleasure from having me read to her in English and show her pictures from the book; she didn't understand the words, but she liked the closeness and the pictures.

I spoke to her constantly, starting on day one, and I think this helped. I also asked her opinion of things by showing her objects. As an example, when I first got her, I didn't know if she drank from a bottle or a cup. I put some cold cows' milk into a bottle -- and she gave me a huge SNEER, as if to say, "What the heck do you think I am? A baby?" She clearly preferred a sippy cup and was familiar with the Playtex kind. I never found that communicating with my daughter was difficult.

Sharon