Bilingual language development in autism

Abstract

Bilingual language development in children with autism is a new field; the entire body of literature, which is so far sparse, has been published within the last ten years. The potential impact of this research is, however, very high, due to increasing numbers of children growing up bilingually in many countries crossed with the rising number of children being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Parents and practitioners need guidelines with solid empirical foundations which could provide the base for answering questions about language practices. Overall, no detrimental effects of bilingualism have so far been reported for either language development or characteristics related to autism. Based on a scoping review, this paper assesses these findings and addresses what current knowledge allows us to conclude about bilingual language development in autism. It is suggested that while recent studies are posing more sophisticated research questions and using more appropriate tools, remaining issues, notably related to how variables related to autism and to bilingualism are taken into account, render clarity on this research topic elusive at this point. It is argued that future studies should directly take up the challenge of addressing diversity in both ASD and in bilingualism, and their intersection.