Bilingualism in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Finding Meaning in Translation

In the United States, 12 million children primarily speak a language other than English at home.¹ This represents about one in four children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) being raised in a bilingual environment. The old notion that bilingualism could "confuse" a child has long been refuted by a large body of research that suggests quite the opposite.² As early as infancy, persons in a bilingual environment show advantages in certain cognitive tasks.³ Furthermore, there is evidence that bilingual persons perform better on tasks indicative of social understanding stemming from the ability to navigate the intricacies of more than one culture. Nevertheless, whether these advantages also apply to children with ASD remains a controversial topic.⁴.