In 2017, a group of international researchers discovered that bilingual babies as young as 20 months of age can understand and process two languages without getting the two confused. They also noted that these bilingual infants show similar levels of cognitive effort in “switching” between the two languages as bilingual adults. These findings have implications for working with bilingual families, as noted by the following quote from the article:
“One of the most obvious implications of these results is that we needn’t be concerned that children growing up bilingual will confuse their two languages. Indeed, rather than being confused as to which language to expect, the results indicate that even toddlers naturally activate the vocabulary of the language that is being used in any particular setting.”
Learn more about these discoveries at the following link: https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/08/07/bilingual-babies-listen-languages-and-dont-get-confused