Simultaneous bilingualism is a form of bilingualism that takes place when a child becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth. According to Annick De Houwer, in an article in The Handbook of Child Language, simultaneous bilingualism takes place in "children who are regularly addressed in two spoken languages from before the age of two and who continue to be regularly addressed in those languages up until the final stages" of language development. Both languages are acquired as first languages. This is in contrast to sequential bilingualism, in which the second language is learned not as a native language but a foreign language.
Prevalence
It is estimated that half of the world is functionally bilingual, and the majority of those bilinguals are 'native speakers' of their two languages. Wölck has pointed out that there are many "native bilingual communities", typically in South America, Africa, and Asia, where "monolingual norms may be unavailable or nonexistent".
Beliefs about simultaneous bilingualism Some popular misconceptions about bilingualism include the ideas that bilingual children will not reach proficiency in either language and that they will be cognitively disadvantaged. Many studies in the early 20th century found evidence of a "language handicap" in simultaneously bilingual children, linking bilingualism with a lower intelligence. However, many of these studies had serious methodological flaws. For example, several studies relating bilingualism and intelligence did not account for socioeconomic differences among well-educated, upper class monolingual children and less-educated (often immigrant) bilingual children. Recent research has found evidence that simultaneous bilinguals have a cognitive advantage over their monolingual counterparts, particularly in the areas of cognitive flexibility, analytical skill, and metalinguistic awareness. However, most studies agree that simultaneous bilinguals do not have any definitive cognitive advantage over monolinguals. Despite these findings, many therapists and other professionals maintain that simultaneous bilingualism can be harmful for a child's cognitive development. One side argues that only one language should be spoken until fluently spoken and then incorporate the second language. The other side argues that the child, whether simultaneously bilingual or not, would still have speech issues. Some bilingual families have chosen to stop speaking a language after hearing about the supposed negative developmental effects of child bilingualism from people in authority. People were once concerned that being exposed to more than one language would be confusing and cause bilinguals to lag behind their monolingual peers in language development, but multiple researchers have refuted this claim. Bilinguals appear to acquire the same milestones—including when they say their first word, when they say their first telegraphic phrase, and when they obtain a vocabulary of fifty words—within the "normal range of variation" of monolingual development in each language. This is an analysis of overall vocabulary in bilinguals, as this is the more accurate and appropriate measure of language development in bilinguals. Analyzing only one of a bilingual individual's languages would seriously underestimate their true vocabulary knowledge. Any vocabulary deficits in one language are likely filled by knowledge in the other language, suggesting a likelihood that bilinguals know more vocabulary words than monolinguals in general. To this effect, researchers emphasize the importance of assessing overall vocabulary in bilinguals because assessing only one is an underestimation of their true knowledge, and when assessed in overall vocabulary bilingual children were no different from monolingual children in terms of language development.
Importance Studying bilingual acquisition is important because it may have real effects on academic performances for bilingual children in school. Research has shown that vocabulary size is an indicator of academic performance and literacy. It is known that different contexts can cause differences in vocabulary in each language. Despite these differences, have suggested that bilingual children are not necessarily disadvantaged in academic performance or academic spoken language because they have a good grasp on the language used for their academics. Regardless, home vocabulary is still relevant to academic life, and it is important to get a better balance in vocabulary acquisition to be able to effectively communicate in both languages. As researchers have shown, context is also incredibly important to the acquisition of bilingual vocabulary. Speaking with children in different languages in different contexts will allow them to gain a more full vocabulary in each language. Furthermore, increasing the number of people children interact with in each language will provide them with more opportunities to learn in varied contexts. Study has provided evidence against the popular "one-parent-one-language" approach, as it restricted the contexts a child had for interactions and use of that language. Due to the effects of environment on language acquisition, it is important that all languages are valued and have support for proper bilingual growth. This includes having proper resources to encourage learning and use of multiple languages. This is difficult for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who do not have access to special bilingual schools.
Bilingual acquisition According to De Houwer, there is no established normal development pattern for simultaneous bilinguals. However, similar language development patterns have been seen in bilingual and monolingual children. Language acquisition in simultaneous bilinguals generally takes two common forms of exposure to a second language:
A one-person–one-language pattern, where each parent communicates in only one of the two languages to the child or both parents speak both languages to the child.
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