Over the years our interests in bilingualism have interwoven with our interests in the language changes of healthy aging and the language changes of dementia. Our training as linguists has been complemented by the study of brain-damaged patients of various ages. As neurolinguists today, our theoretical approach strives to elucidate the underlying brain bases for language; our teaching and involvement with training foreign and second language instructors encourage us to consider applied aspects of bilingualism research as well.

Thus we took the opportunity to bring together a diverse group of researchers to a conference entitled “Bilingualism Across the Lifespan” held at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute in 1986. Not only did the conference papers prove of interest; discussion in both public and informal environments was stimulating. Therefore we determined to put together this book which includes revisions of a number of papers given at the conference, and others invited afterwards. Our thanks to all who participated in that conference.

We are grateful also to teachers, colleagues, and students who have enabled us to advance our thinking over the years of our work in disciplines related to bilingualism. For KH these include Maria Bolander, Pit Corder, Björn Hammarberg, Inger Lindberg, Eva Magnusson, Bertil Malmberg, Manfred Pienemann, Christopher Stroud, Ǡke Viberg, and Maria Wingstedt. For LKO they include Martin Albert, Eva Baharav, Meg Humes-Bartlo, Nancy Mahecha, Margaret Fearey, Eta Schneiderman, Michel Paradis, Jyotsna Vaid, Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Andrew Cohen, and Elite Olshtain.