The wife has been looking into this and says that the cause might stem from the fact that we speak different languages to our baby. She speaks Mandarin, while I speak English to Caitlyn. Could there be a possibility that we’re confusing her and that she has no idea how to process what we’re saying and which language to say first?
The wife’s suggestion is that we stop speaking two different languages to her and just stick to one. The notion is that hearing two or more languages will confuse the child and lead to problems in acquiring language. Hearing just one main language will allow it to stand a better chance of being processed without competition from other languages.
I wholly reject this idea. First of all, Caitlyn understands things that we say to her, whether it’s in Mandarin or English. If she were truly confused, then she would not be able to comprehend what we’re saying.
Also, there really is no research that shows that being raised in a bilingual family stunts your language development. Yes, there might be a slight delay in the speech-language department, but over time, it has been show that bilingual children catch up to their peers and have the added advantage of being able to speak two languages proficiently, which in the long run, can open many doors that might have otherwise been closed.
And the icing on the cake is that there may be benefits from bilingual language learning, as children who are fluent in at least two languages have strengths in metalinguistic awareness (the ability to think about languages), as well as in cognitive skills, such as memory, the ability to learn new information, and speech. Is that Harvard that I see in the distant future?
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