Development in Bilingual Infants

How Do Bilingual Babies Learn Language?

By Teri Brown

New research conducted by Christopher Fennell, assistant professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa, and two of his colleagues at the University of British Columbia, finds that infants raised in bilingual homes learn two similar-sounding words in a laboratory task at a later age than babies raised in homes where only one language was spoken. Why is this? This difference is thought to be because bilingual babies need to devote their attention to the general associations between words and objects for a longer period, rather than focusing on detailed sound information.

The researchers sought to determine whether the demands of acquiring more sounds and words lead to differences in language development. The study revealed that bilingual infants follow a slightly different pattern from monolingual infants.

Dr. Christopher Fennell holds a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology and Cognitive Systems and is an assistant professor for the University of British Columbia. He says that the importance of this research lies in the fact that very little research has been done with bilingual babies.

"Because of this, we know very little about how their language develops," Dr. Fennell says. "It is only through basic research with these babies that we will know what is 'normal' for bilinguals. By knowing what is normal for bilingual development, we can better identify when language problems occur for this population. Through this research, we know that it is normal for bilinguals to ignore the small sounds of words and learn words more holistically for a longer developmental period than monolinguals and that this probably had no negative impact of their language skills and, in fact, probably helps them to learn words quicker."

According to Dr. Fennell, early word learners, both monolingual and bilingual, are very good at hearing the differences between languages sounds (i.e., consonants and vowels). They have no problem distinguishing a "b" sound from a "d" sound in perception. However, when they start learning words, they have difficulty applying their ability to hear sound differences to new words. So they tend to confuse similar-sounding new words.

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