The Follow-Up: Raising Multilingual Kids

I'll be honest with you - this episode hit differently for me as a mom. My son is six and learning Spanish in school, and my parents speak our native language with him, but listening back to this conversation with Alicia made me wish we had been more intentional from the start. No guilt though... just real talk about what the research actually says.

Alicia Gandhi is a bilingual speech language pathologist and clinical assistant professor at NYU, and she is the person you want in your corner when it comes to separating fact from fiction on raising kids with multiple languages. There are so many myths floating around out there, from pediatricians, from teachers, from well-meaning family members, and we break them all down.

In this episode we cover:

• The real cognitive benefits of raising bilingual and multilingual kids (hint: it goes way beyond language)
• Why code switching and mixing languages is not confusion - it is actually a sign your child is doing exactly what they should be
• The milestone myth: bilingual kids are not on a different developmental timeline
• Why you should speak your strongest language at home, even if it is not English
• The harmful practice of "forced monolingualism" and who it hurts most
• Whether kids with language delays or disabilities can still be raised multilingual (spoiler: yes)
• What happens when kids enter a new language environment like daycare or school

Want more? Listen to the full, original episode.

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