A new study found that bilingual kids, like monolingual children prefer interacting with peers who speak their mother tongue with a native accent rather than with peers with a foreign accent.
Previous studies have highlighted the benefits of raising a child in a bilingual atmosphere, open mindedness being one of them. However, a new study found that when it comes to language, bilingual kids are as open minded as monolingual children.
According to a press release, bilingual kids prefer interacting with peers who speak their mother tongue with a native accent rather than with peers with a foreign accent. Findings of this new study support a previous research with stated children who speak one language prefer to interact with those who share their native accent.
The study was conducted on 44 children between the ages of five and six. All the children were shown two faces on a computer screen. Audio recordings were played for each face. One read a phrase in the child's native accent, while another read the same phrase in a foreign accent. Researchers deliberately chose a foreign accent that was unfamiliar to any of the children and varied associations between faces and voices.
The children were then asked to choose the face they would want as a friend. Ninety percent of the children chose the face that spoke in their native accent. Researchers further looked into the mechanism behind this preference and found "familiarity" to be a chief reason.
"Kids tend to prefer to interact with people who are like them, and might perceive an accent as the mark of an outsider," study author Krista Byers-Heinlein, said in the statement. "We show biases early on, so it might be necessary to educate all kids, regardless of their linguistic background, about what an accent is and how it doesn't reflect anything about people other than the fact that they are not speaking their native language."
A study conducted in July 2013, found that bilingual children have a two-tracked mind. While adults need flash cards, tapes, and practice to learn a new language, children tend to pick up new languages more easily, especially if they come from a bilingual family. Interestingly, another study found that children become bilingual as early as seven months of age.
Click here to read an interesting article that highlights the top 5 myths of raising a child in a bilingual environment.
The new study was published online in the journal Frontiers in Psychology and funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
