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Essay / The analybility theory of bilingualism and second...
Fred Genesee, in his later work, wrote down his previous assertions. For example, in his article “Myths about Early Childhood Bilingualism,” Genesee shows that bilingual children reach the same fundamental points in language development as monolingual children (12). He provides examples of studies with French-English infants and a much larger study of seventy-three infants learning Spanish and English in Miami. The results of both studies conclude that the level of engagement in language activities does not differ between bilingual and monolingual children, and that bilingual children produce their first words at approximately the same age as monolingual children (7). Genesee comes to the conclusion that “…learning two languages simultaneously is no more difficult for the human neurocognitive system than learning just one” (8). Beyond that, bilingualism has cognitive, educational, and health benefits. According to Ellen Bialystok and Fergus IM Craik, certain executive control processes have lifelong positive effects, such as the ability to control attention, switch between tasks, and inhibit distraction. In their study, children sort cards by color (red, blue) or shape (circle, square). After moving from one dimension to another, children usually continue to sort the cards according to the original dimension. However, bilinguals were more successful in moving to the second dimension