Code-switching in parents' everyday speech to bilingual infants.
Lena V Kremin, Julia Alves, Adriel John Orena and 2 others
PMID 34006344WHAT IT FOUND
Bilingual parents code-switch more often as infants grow, shifting from 7 to 28 switches per hour between 10 and 18 months.
Most switches happen between sentences to aid understanding, suggesting parents adapt their mixing to support language development.
Key findings
01Parents' code-switching frequency increased significantly between 10 and 18 months, rising from 7 to 28 switches per hour of infant-directed speech.
02The majority of code-switches occurred between sentences rather than within them, and this proportion increased as the child developed.
03Parents primarily code-switched to bolster their child's understanding, with a notable increase in using code-switching to teach vocabulary at 18 months.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is descriptive and does not measure child language outcomes, so it cannot prove that this specific pattern of code-switching causes better language development. Findings are from a specific high-proficiency French-English community in Montreal, so rates and patterns may not apply to other bilingual pairs or communities. Self-report measures were only moderately accurate, meaning parents' perceptions of their own code-switching habits may not match reality. The sample size for longitudinal analysis was small (16 families), and recordings at 18 months were limited to one weekend day, potentially missing weekday patterns.
Declared interests
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and non-U.S. government sources. No financial conflicts of interest with commercial entities are reported in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that code-switching causes language delay or confusion. This study describes typical parental behavior in a bilingual community and shows parents adapt their switching to support the child's understanding, but it did not measure whether the children had language delays or disorders.