Bilingual Language Development in Children
Hearing your child say their first words… perhaps ‘dada’ or ‘mama’…is one of the most exciting moments in early childhood. This experience, which happens in all cultures and languages around the world, changes the way children interact with the environment around them. Developing expressive and receptive communication skills is an important process, and every child has their own way of communicating and processing information. This is particularly true in bilingual children. As our society is becoming more multicultural, it is common for young children to be bilingual. This makes it even more important for speech-language pathologists to understand the unique nature of bilingual language development in children. The brains of bilingual children develop differently than their monolingual peers. In many cases, bilingualism can positively affect development in more ways than just language.