Work

Associations between infant multilingualism and language production and their effects on preschool-aged language development

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Multilingual status has been found to influence children’s language development, with language production differences emerging between monolingual and multilingual children. While multilingual children have been found to produce more gestures than monolingual children, the opposite has been shown for speech-based language. Although previous research established differences between monolingual and multilingual children’s language development, there is more limited research with infants exposed to varying levels of English at home. Further, early childhood education and care centres constitute an increasing influence on infants’ education and development. To date, studies have primarily used home or laboratory contexts, with minimal attention given to educational environments. The present study aimed to first examine whether monolingual and multilingual infants’ language production differed within an early childhood education context. Second, the impacts of infant language production on later language outcomes were assessed, as well as whether this effect was moderated by lingual status. Language production in 188 12–21-month-old infants was measured in three ways: solely speech production, solely gesture production, and gesture with speech production. Receptive vocabulary and narrative language production were measured for 175 of these children at 48 months of age. Results suggested that while frequency of language production in infancy did not affect later language outcomes, lingual status played an influential role in both infant language production and later preschool-aged receptive language. Monolingual infants produced greater speech quantity than their multilingual counterparts and presented with greater preschool-aged receptive, but not narrative, language skills, over and above gesture and speech production. • Monolingual infants produced greater speech quantity than multilingual infants at 12–21 months of age. • There were no differences in gesture or gesture-with-speech production between monolingual and multilingual infants. • Monolingual children had higher receptive language skills at 48 months of age than multilingual children. • Smaller differences between monolingual and multilingual children for narrative, than receptive, language at 48 months. • Speech, gesture, and gesture-with-speech production at 12–21 months did not predict language skills at 48 months.

Source: Cognitive Development

DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101687