Here is a great new article published on ASHA web about bilingualism: “Consequences for language, cognition, development and the brain”.
“Every year, thousands of middle- and upper-class American children study a foreign language for enrichment. These children, their parents, and their teachers are guided by the belief that knowing another language “is good for you.” At the same time (and sometimes in the same schools) thousands of other children—usually from immigrant and lower-class backgrounds—are discouraged from and sometimes forbidden to speak their native language. Their families are told that communication in their native languages will prevent them from mastering English and that raising children with more than one language will “confuse” them and have long-lasting, detrimental effects.
Given these two contradictory perspectives, what does research say about the consequences of bilingualism?”
Marian, V., Faroqi-Shah, Y., Kaushanskaya, M., Blumenfeld, H., Sheng, L. (2009, Oct. 13). Bilingualism: Consequences for language, cognition, development, and the brain. The ASHA Leader, 14(13), 10-13.
I am certainly glad I stumbled across your website. Thank you for sharing this information regarding this article. Here are two possible articles that may be germane to this topic. One is from Live Science in which new data shows bilingual babies may have an early edge on those who only speak one language. Also, a Korean newspaper is reporting that a 13-year-old girl received a perfect score on the TOEFL. The author of the blog suggets that native speakers of English “would not be able to deal with the cognitive academic aspects of the test.”
http://www.livescience.com/culture/090413-bilingual-smart.html
http://english-jack.blogspot.com/2009/11/girl-13-gets-perfect-toefl-score.html