Speech Advantages of Multilingual Children
- According to the Society for Neuroscience, bilingual preschoolers are better able to focus on a task while tuning out distractions than their single-language peers. Researchers believe that these children strengthen their ability to avoid distraction by managing two languages. This is in contrast to earlier beliefs that a child learning two languages at once would become confused and suffer in their language development. An enhanced ability to concentrate, despite distractions, is a sign of a strong memory and is shown to follow these children through their school careers and into adulthood.
- Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found that bilingual students have the advantage of enhanced cognitive functioning. These students, as a result of being able to keep two languages in their minds, generally have smaller vocabularies than their monolingual peers, but are better able to use word retrieval and generation skills. Studies show that these skills, developed during the process of managing two languages and keeping them from interfering with each other, spread to other cognitive areas as well.
- Multilingual students have a social advantage over their non-multilingual peers, according to Cornell University researchers. These students have access to two or more cultures, are able to communicate with more people and have a greater understanding of multicultural life. Students who are multilingual also have advantages as they move into the workplace. Being multilingual also improves memory, which in turn may slow the advance of Alzheimer's disease, bringing a lifelong social benefit to multilingual students.
- Parents who desire to foster multilingualism in their children should speak to them often in two or more languages. All children, regardless of the number of languages they speak, benefit from being talked to from infancy. Multilingual children who develop a love of language from their parents are more likely to become fully fluent in both languages spoken in the home. Expose children to conversations, read books to them and play word and languages games with them, all in each language.
