De Cat, C., & Unsworth, S. (in press). So many variables, but what causes what? Journal of Child Language. (manuscript)
This is a reply to Johanne Paradis’ keynote article (Sources of individual differences in the dual language development of heritage bilinguals, JCL), which provides a comprehensive overview of factors influencing bilingual children’s dual language abilities. In this commentary, we provide an illustration of how the complex relationships between the variables discussed in Paradis’s keynote article could be conceptualised within a causal inference approach. We offer a modest starting point by summarising key features of causal inference modelling and by illustrating how it might help us better understand what causes what.