One in Five American Kids Speak a Language Other Than English at Home

One in five chil­dren in Amer­i­ca — near­ly 12 mil­lion kids total — speak a lan­guage oth­er than Eng­lish at home, accord­ing to the KIDS COUNT Data Center.

The preva­lence of bilin­gual chil­dren varies wide­ly by state, with high­er con­cen­tra­tions of bilin­gual chil­dren liv­ing in the South­west. Rates range from a low of 2% in West Vir­ginia to a high of 45% in California.

Being bilin­gual is good for kids, research indi­cates. Expo­sure to mul­ti­ple lan­guages can enhance both a child’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion skill and his or her cog­ni­tive abilities.

In the Unit­ed States, the num­ber of bilin­gual speak­ers is expect­ed to increase, accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Speech-Lan­guage-Hear­ing Association.

Vis­it the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter for more edu­ca­tion data at the state and nation­al level:

Child pop­u­la­tion by nativity
Chil­dren who have dif­fi­cul­ty speak­ing English
Chil­dren who speak a lan­guage oth­er than Eng­lish at home