Harmonious bilingualism for young children and their families
Join this event to hear Annick De Houwer discuss multilanguage acquisition, teaching and raising children in a multilingual environment.

In Western societies many people, including paediatricians and educators, hold negative attitudes towards early child bilingualism. At the same time, scholars have emphasised the cognitive benefits that bilingualism may confer on children. Parents may feel torn between these opposite perspectives and may not know whether to raise their children bilingually, and, if so, how to do it best.
This talk starts from the assumption that parents generally want to prioritise their children's well-being, whether they are raising children bilingually or not. In a bilingual setting parents will want to support Harmonious Bilingualism for their children and themselves, meaning that no family member is negatively affected by the fact that families are living with two or more languages. Although there are things that parents in a bilingual setting cannot control, there are many that they can. These include parents' own positive attitudes towards child bilingualism and the languages involved, parents' willingness to invest in their children's linguistic development more than might need to be the case in monolingual settings, and parents' willingness to engage with outsiders who may threaten their family's Harmonious Bilingualism.
This event will be particularly useful for those interested in multilingualism, teaching or raising children in a multilingual/multicultural environment.
Multilingualism and Diversity: Impact on Education, Health and Society seminar series
This seminar series aims to bridge science with practice in education. Leading experts in linguistics, psychological sciences and neurosciences will engage with education practitioners, parents, students and members of the public who have an interest in multicultural diversity and inclusion.
Related links
Director of the Harmonious Bilingualism Network
She was trained in linguistics and held professorial positions at the universities of Antwerp and Brussels (Belgium) and at the University of Erfurt (Germany). In the US, she has long been affiliated with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and was a Visiting Scholar at several top institutions there. She is currently President of the International Association for the Study of Child Language.De Houwer's research has mainly focused on bilingual and monolingual children's language development. She has addressed both linguistic and socio-psychological aspects of language development. Her 1990 Separate Development Hypothesis for early bilingual morphosyntactic acquisition has found confirmation across the globe. She created the now widely cited concept of Harmonious Bilingualism.
Further information
Ticketing
Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All
Availability
Yes