Some studies on bilingual and multilingual children:

“Child Language Development in Bilingual and Multilingual Environments” by Laurie-Ann Staniforth

http://www.beststart.org/events/detail/bsannualconf09/webcov/presentations/B5-Staniforth.pdf

“The Bilingual Child” by Jürgen M. Meisel

http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/romanistik/personal/pdf-Dateien/bilchild.pdf

“Multilingual Children - Beyond Myths and Toward Best Practices”

http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/files/Multilingual%20Children%20Beyond%20Myths%20and%20Towards%20Best%20Practices.pdf

Dear Surbala, Good question, thanks for sharing it. I am not an expert on speach and developmental relation but i found a guideline for raising chidren Bilingual. Hope this link will be helpful to you...

Regards

http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/perpg/fac/genesee/A%20Short%20Guide%20to%20Raising%20Children%20Bilingually.pdf

In my personal experience it really helps.

I think every child born with the brain of different abilities. Some children learn more than one language at different stages of development more spontaneously than others. It probably depends on the development of neuronal connectivity between different parts of the brain involve in language learning. Here is an interesting article about the brain function and language learning.

Hope this help

Good luck

Please see below

http://www.psychology.uh.edu/classes/arturohernandez/Readings/weberfox.pdf

@ Mr. Kumar, very useful and informative link. Thanks for sharing

Hi Lourembam,

I have also been interested in this subject. Ellen Bialystok has done some great research on the effects of bilingualism on cognitive development. In one study, I believe she demonstrated that infants cared for by bilingual parents showed earlier development of executive function in the brain's frontal lobe. Her research would certainly be a good place to start learning about the impact of bilingualism vs. monolingualism on the developing brain. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647884/

Hi Lourembom,

Very interesting question. This is an excerpt from a Cornell Language Acquisition Lab:

"A series of research investigations led by Dr. Sujin Yang with children from four to six years of age and comparison adult groups have been conducted to learn whether learning two languages leads to beneficial outcomes in what is called, “executive function.” These cognitive features in children are of particular interest since they are responsible for selective and conscious cognitive processes to achieve goals in the face of distraction and play a key role in academic readiness and success in school settings (Blair & Razza, 2007; Diamond et al., 2007). Using a neuropsychological and

behavioral measure with Korean–English bilinguals, results have already revealed that bilingualism enhances the development of executive attention and facilitates

superior performance in bilinguals as compared to monolingual counterparts on an executive attention test.

(Yang & Lust, 2004, 2007; Yang, 2007)."

However, based on actual observation, I do believe that what matters more than the exposure to multiple languages, is the actual exposure to language itself. Homes with lesser family members or lack of social support may find the parents busy and stressed, leaving them too little time to interact with young ones. That could severely delay onset of speech, where toddlers are largely engaged in passive activities like watching TV rather than in active production of speech in conversational settings. New age cartoons for kids do a much better job of providing educational and interactive content but there is still no substitute for an actual exchange of words.

In terms of language development, the answer is yes. Learning more than one language will slow down the the development of each respective language. However, this delay is only relevant during the early years and, at latest, the teenage years. I'm pretty sure the delayed development doesn't impact the overall proficiency of either language, just the time course to get there is longer.

This delayed development is compensated by improvements in cognition. Specifically, being bilingual can improve representational switching & interference inhibition (sub-modules of executive function) (See Bialystok et al.,2009). Executive functioning is a pretty critical cognition for performance in life, so I'd certainly say that being bilingual is cognitively-beneficial, despite the delayed language acquisition.

Another interesting consideration is the finding that bilinguals develop alzheimers disease approximately 5 years later than their monolingual counterparts (numerous studies illustrate this, but Schweizer et al., 2012 is the most controlled). Therefore, being bilingual offers a form of reserve against neurodegenerative disorders. This reserve is generally called a 'Cognitive Reserve', however, the link between the brain and cognition is obvious, it's just likely we haven't elucidated the actual biological mechanism with the current techniques available, therefore, the mechanism for this reserve is unclear.

Greetings to John, Monica and Jack. Thanks for sharing your valuable ideas and for the very convincing explaination of the facts.

@ Jack, Cognitive Reserve is a new term for me. Thanks for giving me an introduction.

Regards

Werner Leopold, in his classic study of his daughter's bilingual language acquisition, found that early on she took a little while to sort out which language was which, but in general her language development was not delayed. We do know that in the case of ASL and other sign languages, these seem to develop earlier than spoken language and learning them first may speed up development of the spoken language

@Tina, I'm only talking from my personal experiences. My half-brother is a French-English bilingual (he's now nearly 11 years of age), and his development of English has been slower than that of a usual monolingual English person. Then again, his French has always been better than his English (he lives in France, but his father speaks English to him, he speaks English with me, and he has 1 week of English & 1 week of French education, alternatively). So, his English is certainly good and he has no accent. His proficiency is just lower than usual, but perhaps that is because his French is superior. If the two languages developed equally, perhaps there would be no developmental differences.

@Lourem, No worries, if you're interested in bilingualism & neurodegenerative disorders it's a pretty fascinating subject (in my opinion), have a look at the Schweizer et al (2012) study. I can send it to you if you're interested.

@ Jack, kindly do share the Schweizer et al (2012) study so that everyone of us can be benifitted...

@ Jack, I am quite interested in it. Please do share.

Thanks

I believe that multilingualism, may cause a relative short delay in language development, but in long-term it is rather positive. Thr more languages you speak, the more cultures you have as your background.

Attached. I also wrote a relatively in-depth essay on the subject, so if anybody wants to talk about it, I'd be interested in discussing it. The concept of the 'Cognitive Reserve' has been extensively researched by Stern.

Some studies on bilingual and multilingual children:

“Child Language Development in Bilingual and Multilingual Environments” by Laurie-Ann Staniforth

http://www.beststart.org/events/detail/bsannualconf09/webcov/presentations/B5-Staniforth.pdf

“The Bilingual Child” by Jürgen M. Meisel

http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/romanistik/personal/pdf-Dateien/bilchild.pdf

“Multilingual Children - Beyond Myths and Toward Best Practices”

http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/files/Multilingual%20Children%20Beyond%20Myths%20and%20Towards%20Best%20Practices.pdf

See also:

“How social contexts support and shape language development” by Erika Hoff

http://www.lec.ie/media/docs/Hoff%202006.pdf

“Language Developmen” by Erika Hoff

http://www.cengagebrain.com.au/content/hoff01719_0495501719_02.01_chapter01.pdf

@ Nebi Caka. Thanks for the links. It was indeed very helpful

I can only offer a personal experience. My elder daughter, between 2 and 4 lived in Norway where I was working. She acquired English in the normal way but also a version of Norwegian (Ny Norsk) in the play environment of the group of houses in which we lived. I understood the other version of Norwegian (Bokmal) with sufficient fluency to attend evening classes (in navigation) but not Ny Norsk. My three year old daughter was perfectly capable of carrying on conversations that I could not understand (on a bus on one occasion) and switching naturally between Ny Norsk and English depending who she was talking to.

I cannot see that bilingualism impeded language development in either language though so far as I know she did not retain the Norwegian when we moved on.

@ Ilfryn Price, thanks fo sharing your experience.

I agree entirely with Mr.Costas Drossos · ·

"I believe that multilingualism, may cause a relative short delay in language development, but in long-term it is rather positive. Thr more languages you speak, the more cultures you have as your background."

Cummins et al. have written extensively on how bilingualism in children benefits their cognitive development and abilities.

Also, a recent media snippet:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/bilingual-kids-gain-benefits-in-literacy-skills-1.1252909

We who daily speak two languages were informed about the following cognitive benefits:

Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status

Suvarna Alladi, DM, Thomas H. Bak, MD, Vasanta Duggirala et al.

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to determine the association between bilingualism and age at onset of dementia and its subtypes, taking into account potential confounding factors.

Methods: Case records of 648 patients with dementia (391 of them bilingual) diagnosed in a specialist clinic were reviewed. The age at onset of first symptoms was compared between monolingual and bilingual groups. The influence of number of languages spoken, education, occupation, and other potentially interacting variables was examined.

Results: Overall, bilingual patients developed dementia 4.5 years later than the monolingual ones. A significant difference in age at onset was found across Alzheimer disease dementia as well as frontotemporal dementia and vascular dementia, and was also observed in illiterate patients. There was no additional benefit to speaking more than 2 languages. The bilingual effect on age at dementia onset was shown independently of other potential confounding factors such as education, sex, occupation, and urban vs rural dwelling of subjects.

Conclusions: This is the largest study so far documenting a delayed onset of dementia in bilingual patients and the first one to show it separately in different dementia subtypes. It is the first study reporting a bilingual advantage in those who are illiterate, suggesting that education is not a sufficient explanation for the observed difference. The findings are interpreted in the context of the bilingual advantages in attention and executive functions.

Received June 4, 2013.

Accepted in final form August 26, 2013.

© 2013 American Academy of Neurology

You have already gotten several good answers, but I just wanted to add my personal experience. I have two multilingual children and they have not had any delay in their language development. Multilingualism itself does not cause language delay, but lack of support and scaffoling in the different languages can cause delay.

With reference to specific language problems simultaneous bilingualism seems to affect vocabulary the most. I refer to the article below with the conclusion added to highlight the practical meaning of bilingualism in a clinical context.

"Does simultaneous bilingualism aggravate children’s specific language problems?"

Marit Korkman, Maria Stenroos, Annika Mickos, Martin Westman, Pia Ekholm and Roger Byring Acta Paediatrica Volume 101, Issue 9, pages 946–952, September 2012.

Simultaneous bilingualism does not aggravate specific language problems but may result in a slower development of vocabulary both in children with and without specific language problems. Considering also advantages, a bilingual upbringing is an option also for children with specific language problems. In assessment, tests of vocabulary may be sensitive to bilingualism, instead tests assessing comprehension, syntax and nonword repetition may provide less biased methods.

Thanks @ Monica and Roger for your valuable contributions.

Dear all

Thank you for the references. Has any one looked at the bilingualism I described a few days back where my daughter acquired one language vertically (from parents) and one horizontally (from play peers)?

I ask because of a research interest in V and H transmission of ideas via Language.

Help appreciated

You might also find this recent article from a study from the University of Edinbourgh interesting:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24158/abstract;jsessionid=0F6E530B9E69DA84AAD6622AEC7C0CD6.f04t02

Using data from intelligence tests on 262 Edinburgh-born individuals at the age of 11, the study looked at how their cognitive abilities had changed when they were tested again in their seventies. The strongest effects were seen in general intelligence and reading.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24158/pdf

Dear Katherine and Monica

Thank you both. Much to ponder

My personal experience:

My oldest daughter started to speak when she was around one year, the youngest only around the age of two. Both are brought up tri-lingual (Spanish, German and Dutch). It seems to me that individual differences are important in this respect, apart from the (language) environment. I’m bi-lingual myself and based on this, I’d recommend to teach your children the languages that you speak as a native speaker.

I don`t think that multilingualism can cause delay in language development of children. Only individual differences may cause the delay.

In my clinical practice some children suffer from delay in language development because of bi-lingualism. I think individual differences are important in this respect. Multifactorial causes such as genetic (IQ effect?) and enviromental (parents or caretakers?) factors may be related with that differences. Further studies may explain this issue. 

@ Nihal, I appreciate your contribution and agree with your point of view.

I agree that children suffer from delay in language development because of bi-lingualism.

I think that bi-lingualism is an advantage, but only for smart children. The results of population studies are controversial: see the attached EndNote library

I am afraid that my file was not attached.

Dear Nihal,

are bi-lingual children over-represented among amongst the group of children that you see with delayed language development? As a non-expert, I am curious how this is measured. I imagine that this must be difficult considering that the person that assesses the development should speak both involved languages, ideally.

I can add another personal example: According to my parents, I started to speak when I was 2, my brother when he was 1. Our language environment (Dutch and German) and IQs are very similar. To me it seems that it would be a pity to deny a child the chance of learning a second language at early age, especially if that means, in many cases, that the communication with half of the family (e.g. grandparents) becomes so much more difficult.

Dear Mario Losen and Lourembam Surbala Devi  and all other participants in this discussion,

Dr Losen mentions relatives to the bilingual child. In fact, tradition and cultural circumstances are tightly related to language.

Languages then enrich the cultural environment  a child experiences during development. Also cultural influences give meaning to the language(s) a child uses; meaning that bilingualism or multilingualism generally is better than just one language.

In very few cases, i.e. in children with grave language or general developmental disorders, the disadvantages of a limited vocabulary seen in bi- or multilingual children is such a  handicap that it might exceeds the advantages of more than one language.

The attitudes to the language environments of children are largely a matter of taste, of very personal opinions. Generally, parents want to use their own native or stronger language when talking to their children. In doing so they give their children the best language capacity they are able to. This also nurtures the contacts with relatives representing different cultural traditions.

But these attitudes are also related to the different histories of influences on culture and languages in each country. This is seen in the laws and practices of countries, trying to defend their national identities. See post-soviet countries in Europe (Baltic countries, Ucraine) and other countries that have “recently” acquired independence (Finland, Israel, Hungary).

Yours,

Roger Byring

References:

1)      Does simultaneous bilingualism aggravate children's specific language problems?

Marit Korkman, Maria Stenroos, Annika Mickos, Martin Westman, Pia Ekholm, Roger Byring

2)      Language profiles of monolingual and bilingual Finnish preschool children at risk for language impairment.

Martin Westman, Marit Korkman, Annika Mickos, Roger Byring

Dear Dr Surbala,

I have no research on that but my personal experience is that it won't affect language development but can put some mild effects. That is very temporary and can be improved by councelling the caregivers. But if the child has a speech related problem then billingual language may cause obstruction in language development.

Naheed

I agree with what Naheed has been writing earlier. Besides, it takes "long-term" observation of some days to weeks, preferably taking place in the children's home and play group settings, in order to determine whether a child really has a delay in its language development and cognitive abilities - and in the few cases where it is the case, to determine what is the cause for it.

Serious problems of language acquisition are usually related to hearing. If there is a serious hearing problem, children face problems with their language development - no matter how many languages the child speaks. It has nothing to do with the amount of languages involved. Usually, if the hearing problem is "solved", the language development gradually "normalizes". The problem is just that by that time parents have been made so uncertain of the situation that they often stop using multiple languages.

The other problem is that maybe the caregivers are not exposing the child enough to a certain language, without realizing it themselves (it is always good to audio-tape them or ask them to make notes how often they use their language in interaction with the child, how often they, the adults, mix or switch languages in front of the child). In these cases, children cannot acquire a strong basis for their language acquisition, and it may be delayed.

What people often do not understand is that multilingual language acquisition and development come in waves. Sometimes one language is more dominant, sometimes another one becomes more dominant. It depends on the context in which a certain language is used and on the function which that language fulfills for the child (see Grosjean or Oksaar or Barnes, etc.): multilingual speakers are never balanced in their languages. They use different sets of vocabularies with different people or in specific contexts. Speaking with parents differs from playing and speaking with friends, which again differs from the vocabulary used at school which differs from the language used with strangers and authorities, etc.  Each setting/person shapes different domains and each language requires different vocabularies for interaction with the other, which cannot be easily compared.(Besides: some children love talking, others prefer to listen - giving the impression that their language development is delayed which is not necessarily the case).

Multilingual children are never examined in all the languages they know but just in the language of the health practitioner who is doing the test. The health practitioner frequently has a monolingual bias when examining a child's abilities. Moreover, don't underestimate the children's abilities to reject artificial situations of examining their knowledge.

For instance, my children grow up hearing 4 languages, speaking 3 actively. In their first 2.5 almost 3 years, they were predominantly exposed to their father's and my (different) languages and passively to their parents' lingua franca. Their cognitive abilities were tested in the fourth language, that of our country of residence  - which, until they seriously started kindergarten, had played a lesser role in their lives. Usually during these tests, my children were shown cards with pictures and had to name the animal or action which took place on the cards. -  frequently, they knew the words in their father's and mother's languages but not necessarily in our community's language. Moreover, the setting at the health practitioner intimidated my children: a stranger be it a doctor or nurse - the fact and stress of being questioned by a stranger - the children's  fear of probably receiving an injection - which resulted in my children often answering with "I don't know" when asked "what is this? What is the child/animal doing on this picture?What can you tell me about that picture?" Even if asked to say the word in my or my husband's languages they usually answered with a weak "I don't know"  (which I knew was not true because I had heard them using the words earlier, in different settings at home). If I had been less relaxed about these test situations, I would have been worried to death about the results - but like this I could say: it'll be fine and better,  now I can state that my children are very dominant in one language (school), fluent in two more and the fourth one seems to develop pretty nicely as well...