Bilingualism and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Bilingualism has widely been studied in the last decade and it has been found to enhance the individual’s cognitive and social skills. Despite initial skepticism from teachers and caregivers, bilingualism is no longer a phenomenon associated to language minorities only as it has achieved consensus in many Eastern and Western societies. The advantages of bilingualism has been studied in relation to several disorders such as Down syndrome and SLS but not many research studies have examined the effect of bilingualism on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This research aims to fill this gap and analyses the consequences of raising an autistic child in a multilingual environment. To do so, strengths and weakness of bilinguals in the spectrum will be examined in relation to the five language dimensions and the executive functions. Overal, literature findings show that bilingualism does not further impair the language and cognitive development of individuals with ASD, instead it boots it in certain cases.