a question about multilingual babies

[Barbara Pearson]

Dear Tamar and Yves,

I, too, was going to question on what basis the earlier correspondent  
drew her or his conclusion.
I remember hearing it said that "the plural of 'anecdote' is not  
'evidence.'" (Perhaps someone can give us the sources of that quote,  
or a correction.)

Meanwhile, I am thrilled to hear that you have choices (!) about which  
language or languages you can find in nurseries for your boy.
In making your decision, you should consider which languages your son  
will have authentic sustained interactions in.
When the need to learn four languages is strong, young children seem  
to be able to do it, but it gets a little difficult for parents to  
arrange enough exposure to all four languages at once.

  There's not one right answer. And the answer you decide on now may  
be best for now, and you will want to change it later.  If you're  
thinking that your husband may get less opportunity to be with the  
child, perhaps it make sense to reinforce his mother tongue at the  
nursery if that is important to him.  For work on the emotional  
aspects of bilingualism, you might look for work by Anna Pavlenko.

Best wishes,
Barbara Pearson
************************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Depts of Linguistics and   Communication Disorders
c/o 226 South College
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst MA 01003

bpearson at research.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/bp_indexold.htm
http://www.zurer.com/pearson/bilingualchild


> Dear Tamar and Yves,
>
> There is a recent paper by Janet Werker that may be relevant to your  
> second question about how early should you expose your child to his  
> many languages.  In contrast to an earlier response to your post, my  
> reading of the literature suggests that bilingualism/multilingualism  
> in an of itself is not a risk factor in development.  This is echoed  
> by
>
> http://www.lsadc.org/info/pdf_files/Bilingual.pdf
>
> http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/pspi_10_3.pdf
>
> http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2010/werker.cfm
>
> On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 10:48 AM, Tamar & Yves <tamarmr at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
> Hello all,
> Our 10 months old son is exposed to 3 languages at home ( each one of
> us is speaking to him his mother- tongue, and we speak English between
> us) and to a 4th one outside.
>
>
> Soon he will be starting Nursery, and we were wondering what language
> it should be in. Is it better to expose him simultaneously to all 4
> languages or should we do it gradually over the first few years of his
> life (It's possible to sign him up to a nursery in my husnband's
> mother tongue (2)/ english (3)/ bi lingual (enviroment+English)(4))
>
>
> We don't want language acquisition to be too much of a burden on him,
> and not sure how many languages he can learn at once.
>
>
> We are aware of the large number of factors affecting the answer, but
> does anyone know or refer us to research done on the specific issues
> of (i) number of languages babies can learn and its implication on
> their emotional state; and (ii) Is it better to expose a baby to those
> languages simultaneously or gradually over the first few years of his
> life.
>
> Thanks,
> Tamar & Yves
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google  
> Groups "Info-CHILDES" group.
> To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com 
> .
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en 
> .
>
>
>
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google  
> Groups "Info-CHILDES" group.
> To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com 
> .
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en 
> .

************************************************
Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Depts of Linguistics and   Communication Disorders
c/o 226 South College
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst MA 01003

bpearson at research.umass.edu
http://www.umass.edu/aae/bp_indexold.htm
http://www.zurer.com/pearson

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Info-CHILDES" group.
To post to this group, send email to info-childes at googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to info-childes+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/info-childes/attachments/20110508/828a2827/attachment.htm>