Dr. Erika Hoff: Bilingual Children Acquire English Language Skills by Age 5
Thursday, Jul 01, 2021
A first-of-its kind study in U.S.-born children from Spanish-speaking families led by researchers at Florida Atlantic University finds that minority language exposure does not threaten the acquisition of English by children in the U.S. and that there is no trade-off between English and Spanish. Rather, children reliably acquire English, and their total language knowledge is greater to the degree that they also acquire Spanish.
"We found that early in development, children who hear two languages take a little longer to acquire each language than children who hear only one language; however, there is no evidence that learning two languages is too difficult for children," said Dr. Erika Hoff, lead author of the study published in the journal Child Development.
Dr. Hoff is a professor in the Department of Psychology within FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science on the FAU Broward Campuses.
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