Bilingual Acquisition and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: Challenges to the Research Paradigm

Abstract

The belief that learning a second language (L2) poses challenges to cognitive performance in early childhood is questioned along with the ideas of proponents and opponents. It is regarded colorable to claim that development in bilinguals and monolinguals can be different because of the functions or advantages of specific experiences in each language. Studies maintaining that bilingualism influences cognitive development in early childhood lead one to the conclusion that language and cognition are interdependent rather
than independent issues. Nevertheless, bilingualism has been treated as a single discrete independent variable ignoring that it is a multidimensional notion, which seems to remain a problem in the experimental paradigm of research. Thus, to scrutinize on the influences of bilingualism, it is considered crucial to take into consideration the unique features of participants, tasks and the relationships of those tasks to the constructs in question. Finally, bilingual children’s ability to transfer their decontextualized skills and knowledge from one language to another is regarded as an advantage while children in monolingual contexts are only able to carry out the very same tasks only in one language.