An American psychology professor in the 1950s claimed that exposure to a foreign language too early (he was in fact referring to a 3-year old, comparing with an 8-year old)would lead to language confusion. He thus recommended that language education should first focus on the mother tongue and then move on to a 2nd language. This confusion theory has dominated our education policy for more than half a century.
The emergence of bilingual families in America, as racial segregation recedes, and as we come to know the existence of multilingual regions like Singapore, Malaysia, Switzerland and Scandinavian countries, early language exposure to a wider range of languages has been proven a great asset than a liability.
"Science can contradict itself. And that's OK. It's a fundamental part of how research works. But from what I've seen, it's also one of the hardest parts for the general public to understand. When an old theory dies, it's not because scientists have lied to us and can't be trusted. In fact, exactly the opposite. Those little deaths are casualties of the process of fumbling our way towards Truth*."(Boing Boing)
Read a host of interesting cases from the following link
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/thaler10/thaler10_index.html
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