IS LEARNING TWO LANGUAGES CONFUSING TO CHILDREN?
Learning more than one language in childhood comes naturally and children can learn two languages simultaneously or successively. Despite persistent myths that are often spread by pediatricians, teachers, other parents and even some speech therapists, bilingualism does not cause delays in language development or hinder academic success later in life. A child's brain is flexible and humans are made to be bilingual and even multilingual, and while in the US most children learn only English across the world in many countries and cultures bilingualism and multilingualism is the norm, not the exception.
If you compare language development to the development in another area, like motor development, you would likely not run into the concerns that are so prevalent about bilingual language development, specifically, that learning more than one language is confusing and cumbersome. When a child is learning a motor skill such as walking early in childhood, nobody would be concerned about hindering this development if parents chose to introduce baby swimming lessons simultaneously. Similarly, if in their preschool years a child played soccer but also showed an interest in learning how to ride a bike, a pediatrician, teacher or parent would not worry that they could only do one or the other and working on both skills at the same time would be too taxing. A child's brain is not like a computer with a finite processing ability and limits on storage space on the hard drive. Instead, the capacity is impressive early in childhood, and stimulation in the language area in general supports overall language skills, regardless of what language or how many languages the child is learning.
Learning more than one language early in childhood does not confuse the child or cause language delays and speech and language delays have been shown to have the same rate of occurrence in children exposed to two languages as in children who are only learning only one language. Even children with complex diagnoses like autism, Down Syndrome and Specific Language Impairment are able to learn more than one language and while their development in one or two languages is going to be slower and depending on the diagnosis might differ as far as following the typical milestones of development, focusing on just one language for children with speech and language development is not recommended even in these cases.
WHY SHOULD MY CHILD BE BILINGUAL?
Children learn languages most effectively between the ages of 0-8 and early and consistent exposure to two languages leads to the best results. It is helpful to think of the language "habitats" of the child to determine how important it is for the child to learn two languages. What relationships will they be cut off from if they do not develop at least an understanding and perhaps also expressive skills in a certain language? In addition to thinking about what language they will need to learn academic content, social and emotional well-being and connectedness need to be taken into consideration. Will they miss out on being able to participate in community activities or have a meaningful relationship with grandparents if they are not able to learn a minority language? Or even worse, will they struggle to effectively with a parent?
Bilingualism also has actual benefits. In addition to the obvious ones like better work opportunities and the ability to befriend and collaborate from other cultures there are neurological advantages that are very exciting. The Bilingual Advantage is a phenomenon that has been found especially in children and individuals who are active bilinguals and can not only understand but also expressively use both languages. Studies have shown benefits in areas like attention span, executive function and cognitive control and can even in offsetting age-related skill loss.
WHAT IF THE DEVELOPMENT IS SLOW?
It is normal for a bilingual child to have one language that they speak and understand better but at least one of their languages or the sum of the two languages (conceptual vocabulary which means combined vocabulary between the two languages) will be age appropriate in normal language development. If that is not the case an evaluation by a speech-language pathologist is recommended. While bilingualism does not cause language delays it also doesn’t exclude speech and language delays and children with exposure to two or more languages can also have language delays and disorders but it is important to keep in mind those delays would be present even if they were only acquiring one language. Waiting longer to refer bilingual children for an evaluation because of the myth that language development is slower in bilingual children is still common but it is not evidence based practice. Many doctors and teachers and even speech language pathologists still recommend waiting longer to refer and evaluate bilingual children, which puts them at a disadvantage because they are at risk for missing out on therapy during the stages when the brain is most susceptible for language acquisition.
There are many other barriers to identification as well. For example, when a monolingual child has difficulties with language or speech development teachers and parents can easily identify the problems as they speak and understand the same language. With bilingual children, however, teachers might think that the child must have normal development in their home language and parents might think that the child is doing just fine in English, when the child is actually struggling across the two languages and doesn’t function age appropriately in either language. When a bilingual child has disordered communication development, bilingualism also often becomes the undeserving culprit and even parents who have other children who developed two languages with ease think that maybe their child with delays or a communication disorder is just “confused” by the two languages even when their other children did not experience such “confusion” because they did not have a language delay or disorder. Thinking this way is a silly as thinking that a child who is exposed to English but has a language delay maybe just should have been born in Germany instead of America and that the problem is English and maybe another language would have been better suited for them to learn.
Completing and evaluation and starting therapy if a delay or disorder is present is the best course of action so that the child can benefit from and maximize their growth with the help of the natural sensitivity periods for language and speech development when the brain is naturally most susceptible to acquire these skills.
HOW TO EVALUATE A BILINGUAL CHILD’S SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT?
If concerns arise, a child exposed to two or more languages needs to be assessed across the two languages by either a bilingual speech-language pathologist or with the help of an interpreter. Parents and other caregivers and native speakers of a minority language are important informants especially if the therapist completing the assessment does not know both languages fluently themself. Evaluations for young children need to consider the conceptual vocabulary of the child across the two languages and studies have shown that there are no delays in vocabulary development with bilingual children when vocabulary across both of the languages is taken into consideration. While slight delays may exist in grammar development these areas are usually less than 3-6 months delayed compared to monolingual children. A bilingual with typical development will have the same vocabulary growth milestones in their development with words in both languages counted towards their total vocabulary. They will be about 50% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener at age 2 and 75% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener at age 3. By age 4 they will be about 90% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener.
During the assessment it is important to gather information beyond the typical medical and developmental history and find out about the child’s exposure to the two different languages to get an idea of how much input in either language they have had and what the sources have been. If a child has been exposed to English (or the majority language of their country) at school and the minority language at home one can assume that vocabulary related to academics and preschool concepts would be stronger in English while others related to themes from home such as clothes or foods would be primed for the home language and thus easier for the child to remember in that language. Charting language exposure will give the evaluator an idea of which language the child might have better skills in and also what differences to expect to find during testing.
Language testing always needs to be done in both languages and when standardized assessments are not available language sampling and speech samples as well as dynamic testing provide valuable information into the child’s abilities. Many standardized tests are also available in languages other than English. Language dominance testing, or finding out which language the child uses and understands better and has a preference for, is important in understanding the child’s functional skills, but it should not be used to justify testing in only one language, unless skills in the other language are very minimal to non-existent.
DOES MY CHILD NEED A BILINGUAL SPEECH THERAPIST?
In therapy a bilingual clinician can use a crosslinguistic approach and target structures that are similar across the two languages and highlight differences. Code switching and “translanguaging”, which means switching from one language to the other is as natural to bilingual children and people as using gestures in addition to words is for a monolingual person and should not be interpreted as pathological but often code switching can tell a parent, educator or speech therapist a lot about the ease of retrieval of words and phrases from the brain and is an indicator for either what language that person is more used to using in a certain situation or topic or what words are primed for easier word retrieval in their brain. Bilinguals don’t always have translation equivalents for all of their vocabulary and it is normal for certain vocabulary to only be learned in one language or the other.
It is ideal for a bilingual clinician to treat a bilingual client but often not possible and therapy in just one language is beneficial to the child and certain skills can carry over from one language to the other especially when family members are assigned the role and given a home program each week to work on the same structures in the minority language. When a monolingual clinician is treating a bilingual child they ideally have some knowledge into the sound system and grammar features of the other language to be able to target first features that are similar and make the most gains across the two languages and then move on to features that differ between the two languages and use caregivers as liaisons to help develop those skills in the other language.