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One misguided legacy of over a hundred years of writing on bilingualism is that children's intelligence will suffer if they are bilingual. Some of the earliest research into bilingualism examined wether bilingual children were ahead or behind monolingual children in IQ tests. From the 1920s throught to the 1960s, the tendency was to find monolingual children ahead of bilinguals on IQ tests. The conclusion was that bilingual children mentally confused. Having two languages in the brain, it was said, disrupted effective thinking. It was argued that having one well-developed language was superior to having two half-developed languages.
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The idea that bilinguals may have a lower IQ still exist among many people, particularly monolinguals. However, we now know that this early research was misconceived and incorrect. First, such research often give bilinguals an IQ test in ther weaker language - usually English. Had bilinguals been tested in Welsh or Spanish or Hebrew, a different result may have been found. The testing of bilinguals was thus unfair. Second, like was not compared with like. Bilinguals tended to come from, for example, impoverished New York or rural Welsh backgrounds. The monolinguals tended to come from more middle class, urban families. Working class bilinguals were often compared with middle class monolinguals. So the result were more likely to be due to social class differences than language differences. The comparison of monolinguals and bilinguals was unfair.
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The most recent research from Canada, United States and Wales suggest that bilinguals are, at least, equal to monolinguals on IQ tests. When bilinguals have two well-developed languages (in the research literature called balanced bilinguals), bilinguals tend to show a slight superiority in IQ tests compared with monolinguals. This is the received psychological wisdom of the moment and is good news for raising bilingual children. Take, for example, a child who can operate in either language in the curriculum in the school. That child is likely to be ahead on IQ tests compared with similar (same gender, social class and age) monolinguals. Far from making people mentally confused, bilingualism is now associated with a mild degree of intellectual superiority.
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One note of caution needs to be sounded. IQ tests probably do not measure intelligence. IQ tests measure a small sample of the broadest concept of intelligence. IQ tests are simply paper and pencil tests where only 'right and wrong' answers are allowed. Is all intelligence summed up in such right and wrong, pencil and paper tests? Isn't there a wider variety of intelligences that are important in everyday functioning and everyday life?
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Many questions need answering. Do we only define an intelligent person as somebody who obtains a high score on an IQ test? Are the only intelligent people those who belong to high IQ organisations such as MENSA? Is there social intelligence, musical intelligence, military intelligence, marketing intelligence, motoring intelligence, political intelligence? Are all, or indeed any, of these forms of intelligence measured by a simple pencil and paper IQ test which demands a single, acceptable, correct solution to each question? Defining what constitutes intelligent behaviour require a personal value judgement as to what type of behaviour, and what kind of person is of move worth.
