Yet all research points to the exact opposite–not only that, but bilingual students pick up certain pre-reading skills faster than their monolingual classmates. In fact, bilingualism is associated with many other cognitive benefits like stronger multitasking skills, creativity, and working memory.
Bilingualism, or the ability to speak two or more languages, has been found to have a significant impact on academic achievement. Numerous studies have shown that bilingualism can improve cognitive skills, enhance problem-solving abilities, and increase academic performance in a variety of subjects.
Summary: Researchers set out to examine what benefits bilingualism might have in the process of learning a third language. They found that students who know two languages have an easier time gaining command of a third language than students who are fluent in only one language.
The idea that two languages causes language delays in children has been a long-standing myth in the United States. However, research has dispelled this myth. Children are able to learn two languages at the same pace as other children who are learning only one language.
According to scientific studies, bilingual children are better able to focus, plan, prioritize and make decisions. As children get older they tend to score higher on cognitive tests and possess more effective communication skills. Many studies have also found that bilingualism can also help prevent dementia in old age.
Early research on bilingualism, conducted before the 1960s, however, linked bilingualism with lower IQ scores, cognitive deficiencies and even mental retardation. These studies reported that monolingual children were up to three years ahead of bilingual children in both verbal and non-verbal intelligence.
The Disadvantages:
Children enjoying a bilingual environment run the risk of being isolated by the host society or of being teased by their peers when speaking in the foreign language. This teasing can have a detrimental effect on the self-esteem of the child.
Research overwhelmingly supports teaching second languages early, because as we know it's harder to learn a second language as we get older. But when kids are very young — from birth to about three years old — they are very ripe for receiving new information.
They concluded that the ability to learn a new language, at least grammatically, is strongest until the age of 18 after which there is a precipitous decline. To become completely fluent, however, learning should start before the age of 10.
A study conducted at the University of Granada and the University of York in Toronto, Canada, has revealed that bilingual children develop a better working memory -which holds, processes and updates information over short periods of time- than monolingual children.
Bilingual children may have a superior ability to focus on one thing and change their response, easily indicating “cognitive flexibility.” Both traits require self-control, a very desirable trait in the early childhood classroom as well as life.
They found that bilinguals were significantly faster than monolinguals on tasks that required cognitive flexibility to combine simple arithmetic operations, which are typically embedded in mathematical problem solving.
The good news is young children all around the world can and do acquire two languages simultaneously. In fact, in many parts of the world, being bilingual is the norm rather than an exception. It is now understood that the constant need to shift attention between languages leads to several cognitive advantages.
Because of its Latin roots, nearly identical alphabet and pronunciation rules, Spanish is one of the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn. Learning Spanish at early age can help your child learn the other Latin-based languages in the future such as French and Italian.
The most recent major study on language learning and age was conducted by researchers at Harvard and MIT. It concluded that starting to learn a new language before age 10 will give a learner the best chance of achieving proficiency similar to that of a native speaker.
Are you ever too old to learn a new language? Well, the good news is that experts say you are never too old. Studies show that anyone at any age can learn a new language. In fact, it is even easier to start speaking in a foreign language now with all the advanced technology available on the market.
Bilingual children may say their first words slightly later than monolingual children, but still within the normal age range (between 8-15 months) (11). And when bilingual children start to produce short sentences, they develop grammar along the same patterns and timelines as children learning one language (5).
To sum it up, three languages are not too much for your little girl – and there are millions of trilingual children in the world to prove the case. Wishing you a successful bilingual family journey!
Late bilingualism – refers to bilingualism when the second language is learned after the age of 6 or 7; especially when it is learned in adolescence or adulthood.
Some children raised bilingual do take a little longer to start talking than those raised in monolingual households. The delay is temporary, however, and according to experts, it's not a general rule.
Children who speak two languages fluently often have an easier time learning new vocabulary and categorizing words. Apart from language development, being bilingual children can also have improved listening, information processing, and problem-solving skills (ASHA, n.d.).