Missing the Mix: Perceiving Code-Switches as a Mechanism for Bilingual Adaptation

Code-switching is a common and natural aspect of many bilingual individuals' everyday language use. For many infants growing up in bilingual environments, such language mixing forms may be a regular part of their daily input. However, the frequency and type of code-switching can vary widely by caregivers' language proficiency, context, and social norms. As early as infancy, increased exposure to code-switches in bilingual environments promotes differences in attention at the behavioral, physiological, and neural levels. In this article, we propose that exposure to code-switching may act as a mechanism driving cognitive adaptations in bilingual children's attention, but more evidence is needed on children's exposure to code-switching. Robust measures of bilingual experiences focusing on qualitative and quantitative aspects of code-switching are necessary to deepen our understanding of the variations in bilingual cognitive development.