SUTD researchers examine bilingual experience and its impact on children’s context-sensitive perception of confidence, offering insights into how language diversity can enhance and benefit children’s social-cognitive development.
As children learn more about the world through the people around them, the diversity of languages gives them a unique opportunity for better social-cognitive learning.
Previous research has shown that children who grow up bilingual have heightened sensitivity to communication cues and are more adept at understanding a speaker’s context and intent. One area that still needs to be explored is the role of bilingualism in a child’s ability to evaluate communicative cues along with the context and intent of the speaker.
Associate Professor Yow Wei Quin from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) addressed this gap in the literature by investigating how children with different linguistic backgrounds consider context when assessing a speaker’s credibility in communication cues.
Together with SUTD researcher Li Xiaoqian, Assoc Prof Yow published a paper titled, ‘Role of bilingual experience in children’s context-sensitive selective confidence strategies’ in Bilingualism: Language and Knowledge. Research provides new insights into how bilingual experience influences children’s ability to recognize and trust authentic speakers.
Participating children, aged between three and five, were tasked with finding a sticker hidden in one of two boxes, either transparent or partially covered. An informant was present to assist in their search by providing accurate or inaccurate clues as to where the sticker was.
Based on the boxes used, children know when the informant can see the location of the sticker (visual access to information). The setup was repeated in several rounds before the actual experiment to help the children determine whether the informant was reliable in providing the correct cues (accurate informant vs. inaccurate informant).
What Assoc Prof Yow found was that children with more language diversity were more sensitive to contextual factors when assessing informant reliability than those with less language diversity. When the informant has visual access to the information, these children will choose to trust the informant if he has previously provided accurate cues, but not if he has provided inaccurate cues in the past.
On the other hand, when children attributed the informant’s initial inaccuracy to a lack of visual access to the information, they showed equal confidence in accurate and inaccurate informants. This result shows bilingual children a deeper understanding of contexts and communication nuances.
“The advantages of bilingualism in the social-cognitive development of children probably come from a greater communicative flexibility that children have to socialize with people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds,” explained Assoc Prof Yow. Constantly adapting to changing communication contexts, when switching between speakers of different languages or cultures for example, challenges and improves children’s management skills in their daily interactions.
Through this research, Assoc Prof Yow seeks to develop ideas on ways to embrace language diversity, with the ultimate goal of using the advantages of bilingualism to improve development and educational outcomes for children from all walks of life. For example, encouraging dual language exposure can improve children’s opportunities to develop effective communication skills and social-cognitive abilities. In the bigger picture, Assoc Prof Yow hopes to encourage a positive change in attitudes towards linguistic diversity.
“By embracing bilingualism, parents and teachers can provide their children with a rich social and cognitive foundation for the development of important social-communication skills,” he said.
Assoc Prof Yow’s next step is to expand his research into the role of multilingualism in children’s development and the impact of language diversity on adulthood. Supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund, his team at SUTD, embarked on a project investigating how lifelong bilingual experiences and the acquisition of different languages early in life can shape the social understanding of young and older people.
Together with a group of researchers led by Assoc Prof Helen Zhou from NUS, they also investigated how such experiences promote cognitive and brain plasticity, believing that these new insights can help people use the advantages of language diversity for personal growth and social cohesion.
More information:
W. Quin Yow et al, Role of bilingual experience in children’s context-sensitive selective strategies, Bilingualism: Language and Knowledge (2023). DOI: 10.1017/S1366728923000433
Awarded by the Singapore University of Technology and Design
Citation: Bilingualism as a catalyst for social development of children (2023, July 24) retrieved 24 July 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-07-bilingualism-catalyst-social-children.html
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