Bilingualism Is Harmful And Interferes With Healthy Development

Being bilingual is a tool that can enhance someone’s life tremendously. The development of this tool can happen either simultaneously or successively.

In America, there is a predominant growth in multiple ethnicities and cultural backgrounds; leading to the usage of multiple languages in the American culture. There is a growing need for many people to learn and utilize multiple languages within the workplace and within one 's own personal life. The importance of bilingualism and the knowledge of multiple languages is ever increasing, and therefore becoming more important for the younger generations. The push for knowing multiple languages and becoming bilingual has many potential negative and positive effects.

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.

In many studies, bilingual learners' brain can have better attentiveness and the ability to switch tasks than a mono-lingual learner’s brain because of their cognitive ability to control to suppress one language while using another language or switch from one language to another language simultaneously. Bilingualism also positively affects learners' academic progress (Saer, D. J. 1923).

In my opinion bilingualism plays a major role in the educational development of children. This is because research has shown that children who are fluent in their home language are more successful in learning a second language. Furthermore, being bilingual offers greater sensitivity to language, more flexibility in thinking and better ear for listening. It also improves a child’s understanding for the native language. Moreover, knowledge of other languages increases a career of opportunities offering several job options.

Having the ability to speak more than one language influences one’ life deeply. Speaking two or more languages can affect someone from being infants to old age. Bhattacharjee continues with, “The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there

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

While some may think that this is not certain studies have proven otherwise. In The Power of a Bilingual Brain, Jeffery Kluger states that, “Research is increasingly showing that the brains of people who know two or more languages….. Multilingual people, studies show, are better at reasoning, at multitasking, at grasping and reconciling conflicting ideas.”(1) Clearly, a bilingual education places students a step ahead not only in their education careers but, as well as in their daily life’s outside school. Jeffery Kluger discusses how a bilingual brain is not necessarily smarter brain, but is a more flexible and practical brain. Evidently, demonstrating to us one of the many benefits of a bilingual

Bilingualism is a person’s ability to speak two or more languages fluently. Initially it was believed that bilingualism had negative effects on an individual’s intelligence and speech and it was thought that the knowledge of multiple languages would complicate one’s thought processing rather than improve its functioning. This theory

Since the early 20th century numerous studies, in psychology as well as linguistics, have been conducted on the effects of bilingualism on cognitive abilities (Saer, 1923; Smith, 1923; Gowan & Torrance, 1965). Until the 1960s there was some consensus among experts about the detrimental effect of bilingualism on cognitive development. However, after the publication of Peal and Lambert’s article on the relation of bilingualism to intelligence, most of these theories were discredited due to methodological flaws (Peal & Lambert, 1962). A majority of the studies conducted before this period did not take into consideration the differences in age, gender, culture, second language proficiency and socio-economic status between the monolingual and bilingual participants. Research conducted thereafter has found largely positive effects of bilingualism on cognitive functions (Landry, 1974; Holtzman, 1980). Recent research in the field has focused on understanding the relationship between bilingualism and specific aspects of cognition, such as inhibitory control, creativity and metalinguistic awareness, as opposed to the earlier studies which tried to associate bilingualism with intelligence. Even though, most studies have found a positive correlation between bilingual proficiency and cognitive benefits, there is still much debate in this area of research (Leikin, 2012). In 1992, Ricciardelli

In the article entitled “The Benefits of Being Bilingual‏”, Dr. Mercola discusses the gained brain benefits from being bilingual and other factors that can improve your neurological system. She started by showing the fact that although the majority of people in the States are monolingual, most people worldwide are bilingual, then she states the apparent advantages of bilingualism. Nevertheless, Mercola highlights on the brain perks of bilingualism. People believed that being bilingual or multilingual was a drawback, conversely studies have shown that bilingualism is considered as a mental exercise which leads to a more proficient working brain throughout aging. She displays that studies comparing bilinguals to monolinguals have shown that bilinguals enjoy more mental flexibility with enhanced cognitive abilities, as well as better

The benefits of bilingualism is something that is well understood in the literature spawning the term, “the bilingual advantage,” which is supposed to encompass enhanced performance control as well as overall mental flexibility culminating in an overall slower decline in executive function as aging continues. Such claims are well supported by evidence from young to old in a multitude of studies spanning decades. What is just as well understood and researched but less often talked about are the negative effects of bilingualism on the brain. Second language acquisition, while potentially providing some benefits to memory and executive control, negatively impacts vocabulary size and linguistic recall tasks of bilinguals compared to monolinguals resulting in less language and verbal fluency.

As time has progressed, a new era of multiculturalism has arisen and with it has come the ability (or requirement) to learn more than one language, or in other words, becoming a bilingual or multilingual individual. However, with this new trend, controversy has arisen as to how this affects performance in terms of cognitive abilities. The purpose of this essay is to find out to how bilingualism affects cognition and whether or not the effects are positive. Cognitions is the term used to describe the process of knowing, reasoning and remembering. Many researchers have set out to solve this contentious mystery. For years, it was believed that a bilingual individual meant that one was at a disadvantage when compared to their monolingual

The connection between bilingualism and cognitive functioning has been greatly studied in the field of psychology. It is believed that people who speak more than one language have enhanced cognitive abilities, compared to monolinguals, which put them at an exceptional level of being communicatively and perceptually successful in life. However, in order to study such abilities that bilingual individuals might have in greater depth it is important to look at development specifically and where it all begins in youth. With this type of research, we will be able to make conclusions about how such predispositions during childhood could have beneficial effects on these individuals later on in life. Therefore, we assume that children who grow up and are raised speaking more than one language possess better executive functioning, specifically in the areas of working memory and attention, compared to monolingual children.

Researchers are continuously investigating methods of advancing human development. Many studies have explored the world of bilingualism and found a few surprising results. The skill of knowing two or more languages has been linked to a variety of cognitive benefits. Knowing more than one language has been proven to impact more than just the linguistic system of cognitive development. This essay will review the positive effects bilinguals experience through early and middle childhood along with adulthood. In addition, with a few of my personal believes and experiences.