Question to the community

[Alcock, Katie]

Some slightly more objective work than the anecdotes suggested here (sorry,
I just have a hard time with the idea of asking someone to lose a language!)
has been done by Kathy Kohnert, particularly looking at naming skill and
speed as children who started schooling with one language go through school.
I can't recall the exact reference but I think it's in Brain and Language.

In summary if you start school at about 6 then you become equal in home and
school languages at about 8 and then cross over at 10 to become dominant in
school language.

Two of my undergraduates have replicated this - one only in 9 year olds
(they were English dominant or equal in the two languages, and ones who were
equal in the two knew more names of objects - if allowed to name in either
language - than English monolinguals, if I recall correctly).  The other
looked at development and roughly replicated Kathy's findings.

Her paper may be under Kohnert-Rice.

Katie
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