Learning how to communicate: does exposure to multiple languages promote children’s pragmatic abilities? A meta-analytic review

Despite an often-reported temporary delay in the vocabulary and grammar development of multilingual children, recent studies have found that exposure to multiple languages benefits children’s pragmatic development. To assess the generalizability of these findings, we conducted a meta-analysis of 29 studies that investigated various pragmatic abilities in both multilingual and monolingual children. In addition, we classified the investigated pragmatic abilities into three broad categories: (i) sensitivity to non-verbal information, (ii) understanding non-literal language, and (iii) informativeness in referencing. We found no effect of multilingualism on pragmatic abilities overall and also not in any of the categories separately. However, based on visual inspection of the effect sizes, we cannot rule out that multilingual children sometimes rely more on non-verbal cues during communication compared to their monolingual peers. We recommend future studies to formulate and test more specific hypotheses and to move away from the focus on a multilingual advantage. •Multilingualism does not seem to enhance pragmatic development overall•Multilingual children may be more sensitive to (subtle) non-verbal cues•Future studies could test the specific experiences that affect pragmatic abilities