I work with families in which caregivers are monolingual. Children are exposed to one language at home and then exposed to English school. I am curious to know how this impacts communication development, especially when at times cultural values and norms can be contradictory. I am also curious to see if there is a difference between caregivers that are first generation in the United States compared to caregivers who may 2nd or 3rd generation born in the United states, who are bilingual and dominate both English and their native or cultural language.
Most people absorb what they can from any cultural input. Regarding exposure to an L2, the autistic individual will certainly benefit to a wider range of vocabulary and thought, just like anyone else. Of course, her|his learning curve will be different than a non-autistic person.
When one speaks about cultural values and norms in the context of childhood in the USA, several significant indicators can be identified, as below:
a.To start, what is commonly known as "ethnic" language identity in the USA usually refers to a language other than English. With this in mind, most "ethnic" language speakers identify on a communal and shared basis more than monolingual, English-only counterparts.
Because "contradictions" bring variety to life, they are a positive element. All cultures largely share values, such as integrity, morality and personal responsibility, to a predominant extent. Food, fashion and religious beliefs largely lie outside the realm of shared values.
b.As a general observation, first generation, bilingual or multilingual caregiver will be part of her|his country of birth, whereas a second or third generation bilingual or multilingual person will generally not be literate in their heritage language. Accordingly, a person whose grandparents are from a different language family (or even the same language, in a different country), will not think the same as a first generation immigrant. Even an immigrant from the UK to the USA thinks somewhat differently about the US constitution than one born in the USA from second generation parents.
If a caregiver is US born, but has learned one or more other languages and lived in a non-English speaking country, she or he will share some values predominant in the L2 or L3. Note that this type of learning when it occurs at the post-secondary level is formal and appears stilted to the native speaker under most circumstances.
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