Unique Characteristics and Challenges of Spanish English Bilingual Children, Including Simultaneous Bilinguals

Additional data collected in the same Northeast Georgia community show that very young children, especially those who have both Spanish and English as their first languages (simultaneous bilinguals) often prefer the use of one language over the other when they first begin speaking, then shift to use of the other language. They are observed to switch between languages depending on the context and their interlocutor and also to frequently follow the patterns of code-switching and convergence within sentences as presented in previous chapters, however, still maintaining one of the preferred languages as a default, which is not always the same language for each child, even in the same household. At given ages, children switch to types of code-switching or grammatical convergence of the two languages that were not their preferred usage patterns before. The patterns of simultaneous bilingualism are compared to and analyzed with the patterns in the larger corpus of data of the wider Hispanic community presented in the previous chapters. Conclusions of others’ research on simultaneous bilingualism (Silva-Corvalán, De Houwer, and others) are examined in light of the data and conclusions from this research in order to expand what we can understand about the acquisition of two first languages from birth or very early childhood.