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How to Support Your Child's Language Development
Bilingual Language Development
Many children grow up learning more than one language. Parents sometimes worry that learning two languages may cause delays in a child's language development or cause confusion. However, we now know that children can learn two languages simultaneously, usually without difficulty. In fact, many children who know more than one language perform as well as or better than their peers who know only one language.
Language development proceeds in basically the same way in all languages: children hear sounds and imitate them, coo and babble (repeat a variety of sounds, play and experiment with vocalizations), and learn to recognize their parents' voices and to recognize words. They begin to use words, to follow simple commands, and then to combine words. Gestures often accompany the words as children seek to communicate. The specific sounds and words children use and understand depend on the language they hear around them, but children can learn more than one language.
If they hear one language from mother and another from father, or one language at preschool and another at home, eventually most children will speak both languages. Some children go through a period when they seem to understand more than they say. This can be especially true for a child when he or she is exposed to a new language, for instance a three-year-old who speaks Spanish at home and enters an English-speaking preschool. This is usually not a problem; with care and attention, the child will learn the new language. However, for a child to keep speaking both languages, he or she needs to continue to hear and use both languages.
Being bilingual can be an advantage:
Those who speak more than one language can communicate with monolinguals in both languages!
Children who speak more than one language seem to have better problem solving skills.
There are some thoughts and ideas that are expressed differently in different languages, so knowing more than one language can enable a child to think about things in different ways.
As international businesses grow, those who speak more than one language may have better job opportunities than those who speak only one language.
Learning a second language early in life could be an advantage:
We know that after a certain age infants seem to recognize the specific sounds of the language they hear, so it may be advantageous for them to hear more than one language.
It is difficult for most people to speak a language without a foreign-sounding accent if they begin to learn it in their teenage years or later.
For more information about raising your child bilingually, see Additional Resources.
How to Support Your Child's Language Development
During the First Year of Life
From One to Two Years of Age
From Two to Three Years of Age
From Three to Four Years of Age
From Four to Five Years of Age
» Bilingual Language Development
Additional Resources
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