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A longitudinal study by the Lifespan Development Laboratory of the Department of Psychology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has investigated the role of foreign domestic helpers (FDH) in Hong Kong Chinese children’s language development in Cantonese and in English over time. The research noted that both benefits and trade-offs in children’s language ability may be attributed, in part, to the presence of FDHs at home, as well as to family socioeconomic status and home literacy environment factors.

The findings were recently published in an early view article in the journal Language Learning and were co-written by Ms. Katrina Dulay, PhD student, Department of Psychology, CUHK, Dr. Xiuhong Tong, Research Fellow, Hangzhou Normal University and Prof. Catherine McBride, Professor, Department of Psychology, CUHK. A total of 194 native Cantonese-speaking children and their parents participated in the study. 40% of families reported that a FDH has taken care of their child at age 5. Most of the FDHs were from the Philippines and from Indonesia. Among these families with FDHs, 59% of the children spoke English with the FDH and 41% of the children spoke mainly Cantonese with the FDH. In the remaining 60% of families with no FDHs, children spoke Cantonese at home.

A multi-level analysis of children’s vocabulary skills from ages 5-9 was done and demonstrated that the advantage of English ability development brought by English-speaking FDHs to children was maintained over time. Children with English-speaking FDHs outperformed their peers in English vocabulary performance at age 5. On average, children with English-speaking FDHs also had higher scores in this task compared to other children in the study from ages 6-9. But in terms of children’s English word reading skills from ages 6-9, no differences in performance could be attributed to the presence of FDHs. Furthermore, the research found that having a well-educated mother and having many English books at home were associated with better performance in the two English language tasks, regardless of the presence of FDHs.

In contrast, no differences were found in children’s Cantonese vocabulary performance according to their home language profile and exposure to FDHs. However, the difference in children’s Chinese character recognition performance attributed by English-speaking FDHs was consistent over time. Children in both age groups (age 6 and ages 7-9) with English-speaking FDHs had worse Chinese character recognition performance compared to their peers. In general, irrespective of the presence of FDHs, children benefited in their Chinese language skills when parents read Chinese books to them more frequently, but appeared to perform worse when parents read English books to them more frequently.

The research team suggested that children with an English-speaking FDH, on average, may benefit from having more opportunities to hear and speak English in everyday situations. Cantonese vocabulary skills, in contrast, appeared to be unaffected by the presence or absence of FDHs, given that children are regularly exposed to Cantonese as the dominant language in Hong Kong society. However, in terms of Chinese Character recognition, children with an English-speaking FDH, received less direct assistance in Chinese character reading at home as the FDH is unlikely to know how to read Chinese, and thus performed worse in this task.

Overall, the study results could be a reminder to parents who employ English-speaking FDHs, to provide their children with greater support in Chinese character recognition, so that the children won’t fall behind their peers in Chinese language skills. On a more positive note, parents could encourage English-speaking FDHs to have richer and more meaningful conversations with the children under their care, to take advantage of the opportunity for English language exposure that already exists within their homes.