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Being Bilingual is Good for your Brain
Written by Deirdré Straughan   

There is a deep-rooted superstition among some Italian doctors and teachers that raising a child bilingual causes the child problems, such as slower overall language development, and academic problems later in school. Fortunately, I never fell for that line, as I had done my homework about bilingualism while still pregnant. And it doesn't stand up to common sense and experience - in many parts of the world, including many parts of Italy, it is very common for children to grow up speaking a local dialect or language in addition to their country's official tongue(s). Swiss children, depending what part of Switzerland they live in, routinely speak at least two major languages - sometimes languages as unrelated to each other as French and German - and learn another one or two at school.
But I know of some multi-national families in Italy who were browbeaten into raising their children to speak only Italian at least until school age, missing the perfect opportunity for the kids to become bilingual easily and naturally. These kids as a result could not communicate with half of their blood relations, and had one parent who could not speak to them in his/her own language. How terribly sad.
Fortunately, a new study shows that being bilingual, far from being a disadvantage, is good for your brain. Now we have ammunition against stupid interference from "authorities".

This article can be found on http://www.beginningwithi.com/italy/living/bilingua.htm written by Deirdré Straughan.

Comments
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Laura   |2010-01-28 08:28:43
Hi I totally agree....my 3 children r bilingual but had to fight my in-laws and kindergarten teachers....I teach english in a scuola media and find Italians tend to have a certain difficulty learning a language because they are so one language orienetated until quite old
laura
Sarah   |2010-01-29 14:00:43
My daughter is nearly 3 and is fantastic, she is slightly behind the majority of children and even ahead of some of the same age. She has no problem making herself understood in either language. She goes to nursery and is fully inserted, she even has understood the mechanism of translating. We have adopted the tactic of speaking in English at home and my husband and I speak to her totally in English, she has Italian everywhere else. I find that music is a great stimulus, songs and nursery rhymes. Her and I sing all the time and she goes to a musical nursery where music and songs are the main stimulus.
With regards to not being able to absorb a second language until school age, I find that theory absurd, studies have proven that under 5's are able to absord up to 5 languages, not that I feel we should all be speaking 5 languages, but from the age of 5 a childs capability of absorbing a second language begins to decrease.
We should stop to look at what other children are doing and g...
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