Early bilingualism: 7 myths about bilingual children, busted

In brief

• Early bilingualism doesn’t confuse children and doesn’t cause language disorders: children who grow up with two languages generally go through the same developmental stages as their peers.
• Mixing languages is normal, cartoons alone aren’t enough, and it’s never too late: what counts is how much language a child hears, from whom, and for how long.
• The most solid advantage of bilingualism is the language itself: the evidence for a “smarter brain” is weak.

Early bilingualism is learning two languages in the first years of life. We talk about simultaneous bilingualism when both languages arrive together from birth, and sequential (or consecutive) bilingualism when the second arrives after the first — through school, for example, or an English pathway. Plenty of myths circulate on this subject, and we hear them often from parents we meet too. Here are the seven most common, tested against the research.

Myth 1: “Two languages confuse children”

False. Children can tell apart the languages they hear from the first few months of life. As psychologists Krista Byers-Heinlein and Casey Lew-Williams note in a review written for parents (LEARNing Landscapes, 2013), newborns can already distinguish languages with very different rhythms, such as English and French, and by 4 months, even languages with similar rhythms, such as French and Spanish. The authors’ conclusion is clear: bilingual children show no signs of confusion.

Myth 2: “Bilingualism delays speech”

False. According to Rome’s Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, a child who is well exposed to and stimulated in both languages generally goes through the same developmental stages as monolingual children. Sometimes first words arrive a little later, but this slight lag isn’t a real speech delay; and if a disorder is present, bilingualism isn’t the cause.

There’s also an optical effect at play. Bilingual children often know fewer words in each language, but if you add up the words from both languages, their total vocabulary is comparable to that of monolingual peers: this was observed in a study published in the Journal of Child Language (Hoff and colleagues, 2012).

Myth 3: “Mixing languages means there’s a problem”

False. Using words from both languages in the same sentence is called code-mixing, and it’s a normal part of bilingual development. Children often borrow a word from the other language simply because it doesn’t come to mind at that moment: it’s a clever strategy, not a sign of confusion. Sentences like “Koko, give me the palla!” are perfectly normal. As early as age 2, the Byers-Heinlein and Lew-Williams review reports, children start adapting their language to match whoever they’re talking to.

Myth 4: “You need a native-speaker parent, or the OPOL method”

Not necessarily. The OPOL method, short for “one parent, one language”, means each parent always speaks to the child in the same language. It’s a useful strategy, but research shows it’s neither necessary nor sufficient: what matters most is the amount and quality of the language a child hears, and the real chances they get to use it.

Quality, in turn, has faces behind it. In a study of 29 bilingual children around age 2 (Place and Hoff, Child Development, 2011), English skills depended on the number of different people the children heard it from, and the share of English coming from native speakers. For families who don’t speak English at home, this is a strong argument in favour of native-speaker teachers and plenty of different voices.

Myth 5: “Cartoons and apps in English are enough”

False, especially in the early years. In the study by Patricia Kuhl and colleagues at the University of Washington (PNAS, 2003), 9-month-old babies learned to recognise the sounds of Mandarin Chinese from real people, while the same people shown on video or heard on audio produced no learning at all. The Italian Society of Paediatrics notes that under age 3, children learn new words from a video only if a parent is sitting alongside them, and recommends avoiding smartphones and tablets before age 2. Cartoons and songs are fine as a side dish, ideally watched together.

Myth 6: “After age 6, it’s too late”

False. An MIT study of almost 670,000 people (Hartshorne, Tenenbaum and Pinker, Cognition, 2018) estimated that the ability to learn the grammar of a new language stays high until around age 17. It’s true, though, that starting early brings advantages: children who grow up with two languages from birth tend to have better pronunciation, a wider vocabulary and more fluency than those who learn the second language later. The research sends a double message: earlier is better, but it’s never too late.

Myth 7: “Bilingual children are more intelligent”

The evidence is weak. A meta-analysis published in Psychological Bulletin (Gunnerud and colleagues, 2020), pooling 143 comparisons between bilingual and monolingual children, found only a marginal advantage in executive function (g = 0.06), with signs of publication bias: according to the authors, the data offer little support for the idea of a general advantage. The one certain advantage is a different one, and it’s enormous: speaking two languages. It means friends, travel, study and work in a bigger world.

What this means for children learning English in Puglia

In Italy, English isn’t the language you hear in the street: if it isn’t spoken at home, exposure has to be built. That’s why three things matter in our pathway. Starting early, from age 1, with KOKO Babies. Giving it enough time, with two sessions a week from age 3 onwards. And entrusting children to native-speaker or perfectly bilingual teachers, in small groups of up to 6. We don’t promise miracles: we build a solid, well-loved second language, year after year.

Frequently asked questions

Can bilingualism cause speech delay?

No. According to Rome’s Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, children exposed to two languages generally go through the same developmental stages as monolingual children; sometimes first words arrive a little later, but this isn’t a real delay, and bilingualism doesn’t cause language disorders. If there’s any doubt, a paediatrician is always the first point of reference.

Are bilingual children more intelligent than their peers?

The evidence doesn’t back this up. A 2020 meta-analysis of 143 comparisons between bilingual and monolingual children found only a marginal advantage in executive function (g = 0.06), which the authors consider weak support. The one certain benefit of bilingualism is the extra language itself: communicating, studying and working with more people.

What is the OPOL method?

OPOL stands for “one parent, one language”: each parent always speaks to the child in their own language. It’s a common strategy in bilingual families, but research shows it’s neither necessary nor sufficient. What matters more is how much language a child hears, the quality of the interactions, and the number of people they use it with.

Come and meet us

If you’re thinking about raising children with English, come and see how we work. At Demo Day, our free open day at our Martina Franca and Monopoli schools, children spend about 30 minutes in English with our team, and you can ask us all the questions you like. Here you’ll find all our pathways from 1 to 18.

Sources

• Byers-Heinlein, Lew-Williams (2013), Bilingualism in the Early Years: What the Science Says, LEARNing Landscapes
• Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital (2022), Bilingualism: when two languages are spoken at home
• Hoff and colleagues (2012), Dual Language Exposure and Early Bilingual Development, Journal of Child Language
• Place, Hoff (2011), Properties of Dual Language Exposure that Influence Two-Year-Olds’ Bilingual Proficiency, Child Development
• Kuhl, Tsao, Liu (2003), Foreign-language experience in infancy, PNAS
• Italian Society of Paediatrics (2018), recommendations on smartphones and tablets from 0 to 8 years
• MIT News (2018), Cognitive scientists define critical period for learning language
• Gunnerud and colleagues (2020), Is bilingualism related to a cognitive advantage in children? A systematic review and meta-analysis, Psychological Bulletin