Bilingual Children With Typical Development Essay

What do we know about the effects bilingualism has on cognitive development? Our world is becoming progressively bilingual; in the US 21% of school age children between the ages of 5-17 years old can speak other than English at home and this number is expected to increase in the coming years. On top of social reasons, the positive effects to the cognitive development of the brain when introduced to a second language are of many. The age of acquisition is vital due to the plasticity of the brain, which according to the critical period hypothesis, begins to level after five years of age. In addition to plasticity, bilingual speakers are more capable of focusing their attention to solve complex problems compared to monolingual speakers.

Nature and nurture both play a significant role in language development. Language development refers to how children understand, organise, speak and use words in order to communicate at an effective, age-appropriate level (Karen Kearns, 2013, P.105). For centuries, theorists have been debating the roles of nature versus nurture. Although, each child’s language will develop at their own pace and there will be many individual differences based on culture, ethnicity, health and ability. As well as physical, social, emotional and cognitive development in which will contribute to a child’s language development.

Kohnert, K. (2010). Bilingual children with primary language impairment: Issues, evidence and implications for clinical actions. Journal of Communication Disorders, 43(6), 456-473.

Specific language disorders, or SLI, affect approximately 7-8% of children in kindergarten. SLI are diagnosed in children, mostly, age 3 and older. The relatively late diagnosis is done to distinguish the children that have SLI from those who are simply “late talkers”. Some of the characteristics of SLI involve problem in only one area and some with problems in all areas of language. The children who are diagnosed with SLI may have a delayed vocabulary growth, disinterest in engagement in social interactions relevant to their age, difficulty in comprehension and/or production in any of the following: morphology, semantics, phonology, syntax, and pragmatics. For example, a 4.8 year old child that does not engage in social interactions

There may be a recognised syndrome or disorder that causes language difficulty for the child and is not able to communicate with others. The child may have a lack of stimulation and support to provide the rich language experience necessary to develop speech, language and communication skills. For example at school, the setting may not have an enabling environment to stimulate the child’s different interests necessary for acquiring language. The books, music, songs and so on may not stimulate and interest the child.

There are many myths about bilingualism having negative effects. One of those myths are that babies are hopelessly confused by exposure to two languages. However, studies have proven that learning more than one language as an infant is actually very beneficial and not difficult to do. According to Judith F. Kroll, babies develop the ability to discriminate the languages that they listen to and are more open to learning a new language. A study by Ferran Pons and other colleagues, revealed how bilingual children show an earlier attentional shift to the mouth. This is due to the fact that bilingual infants rely more on the perceptual salient of audiovisual speech cues in order to to construct two different language systems. Furthermore, another

As your child grows up in a bilingual environment, they may occasionally mix the two languages up, but not because they don’t know any better.

We learned in our text that the development of language is a complicated process that involves phonemes, morphemes, syntactic development among several other factors (Siegler, DeLoache, Eisenberg & Saffran, 2014, p. 218). Proper and effective development of these language skills has been shown to have a critical learning period that enables successful fluency of a language; this period usually occurs between the ages of 5 and puberty (Siegler et al., 2014, p. 220). I believe that this critical period is the backbone of the argument against bilingual education. Proponents of this argument believe that the sooner a child is immersed in the new language, the better off they will be with regards to mechanics and use of that language.

Language is an important part of our lives. I remember when I arrived to USA I could speak a little English. I went to school to improve my language, reading and writing skills; even now I am learning my second language, without English I cannot survive in this new environment. Now I am raising my own kids and I want them to have this important skill, this privilege of knowing a second language, language of their parents and grandparents. By looking at studies of bilingual children, research shows how important it is for a child to learn a second language. Raising a bilingual child is a benefit because it improves social skills, academic proficiency, introduces child to a different culture, and prepares for the future.

The study demonstrated that bilinguals have an advantage in verbal tasks that require sensitivity to structural features of language. This study extends the scope of Ben-Zeev (1977) and Nation and McLaughlin (1986), which focused on syntactic structure, to the domain of phonological structure. Findings from this study suggest that early bilingual experience may enable children to more readily form an abstract representation of phonological patterns. Thus the researchers’ concluded that bilingual children, regardless of whether they actively used a second language at home or simply had exposure to it, had advantage over their monolingual peers in learning the phonological patterns of the new

It is normal to worry about your child’s development as soon as your start to expose a child to a second language. Some bilingual children in fact may start speaking a bit later than other kids, but then so do some monolingual children. Children will mix words up and sentences when learning a second language, this is a normal part of becoming bilingual. Parents should not worry about these myths. Gigi Luk, an associate professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education has found that, “bilingualism is an experience that shapes our brain for a lifetime.” (20xx, para.

In the beginning I talked about wanting to understand how when newborns develop their cognitive learning development of two different languages as they got older for example attending a bilingual Preschool, would they be able to continue with their development of learning both English and Spanish and be able to grow and become experienced in both languages and be able to transition from their first language they may use at home and their second language they may use at school. Now that we got to take a look at two studies that wanted to know if children from low income families either attending a bilingual preschool or a stay at home, are able to grow in both English and Spanish language. In those two studies they had many things in common

There are three types of bilingualism; simultaneous bilingualism, receptive bilingualism and sequential bilingualism (Trejos-Castillo & Merle, 2014). Simultaneous bilingualism is the introduction of two languages at the same time. Infants learn this way through exposure of both languages. Receptive bilingualism is knowing two languages but only being able to use one. This occurs to many children before entering preschool. They’ve been exposed to the language at home, and have only heard of English through television shows, music, etc. They know it’s English and can differentiate between the language however they lack the knowledge to be able to use English as a way to communicate with others. Sequential bilingualism is learning a second language after being fully fluent in a first language. In order to say a person is fully competent in another language, they must be able to comprehend, read and write the other

Children are incredible sensitive to the different ways of people speak. Even when they only hear they can understand the difference between the way men and women talking, difference between polite and impolite talk and so on. They don’t get confused when they hear two languages spoken around them. They follow patterns of learning. First language can influence how child use and learn his second language. Bilingual children often use words from one language when they speaking other language. This is called code switching. But this doesn’t mean they are confused about their languages or they are mixing them. Language mixing is a function of normal language learning behavior. It also observed in monolingual children. The former will sort itself out with time, the latter needs to be attended to by the bilingual speakers in the environment. Bilingual children are capable of focusing their attention on relevant information and ignore distractions. Also they have been shown to be more creative, better planning and solving complex problems than monolinguals. They develop a better understanding of language and how to communicate effectively. Also those bilingual children are more flexible in the way they think as a resulting of processing information through two different language systems. A foundation in primary education allows for strong development in literacy abilities when learning in later grades.

In early childhood, the use of languages explodes, and children show a rapid growth of vocabulary and an increase in vocalized expressions. As children learn to speak, they often learn when engaging in monologues and pragmatics. Although learning a language is an incredibly complex task, young children have little difficulty learning two languages. Parents have an important role in guiding a young child in developing a language. Knowing a second language may be troublesome due to the vast expansion of vocabulary, using correct pronunciation, and a difference in contexts. However; through past studies bilingualism has demonstrated an advantage in children’s executive functions and emotional behavior. In addition, memory advantages have been demonstrated in adults who know more than one language. This essay will focus on diverse methods bilingual’s experience in different stages in their life, along with some