Exposing children to multiple languages doesn't cause speech delay. When a child is language-delayed, the underlying ability to acquire language is impaired, so delays happen regardless of how many languages they're exposed to. Therapy should target foundational language skills.
A lot of parents have this question in their hearts. Is that if you have different languages at home, does it slow down the process, or does it cause confusion in the child? The short answer is yes and also no. Because when children are language delayed, what it is is that the whole thing of their ability to acquire language is delayed, is not working as well as it should. Therefore, no matter if it's one language or two or three, the whole thing will be delayed. It doesn't matter the amount of language, like how many languages you're teaching. It's about that at the base and root level, that their language skills aren't good enough. So therefore, when we're teaching, we're giving therapy, we're teaching them language, we are dealing with the base set of skills. At the theoretical side of it is that we're dealing with those base rocks.
