Yet all research points to the exact opposite–not only that, but bilingual students pick up certain pre-reading skills faster than their monolingual classmates. In fact, bilingualism is associated with many other cognitive benefits like stronger multitasking skills, creativity, and working memory.
Changes in neurological processing and structure
Studies suggest that bilingual advantages in executive function are not limited to the brain's language network. Bilingual people show increased activation in the brain region associated with cognitive skills like attention and inhibition.
A study conducted at the University of Granada and the University of York in Toronto, Canada, has revealed that bilingual children develop a better working memory -which holds, processes and updates information over short periods of time- than monolingual children.
The brain of bilinguals has cognitive enhancements
In fact in one study, brain scans showed that people who spoke only one language had to work harder to focus on a single word. It also suggested that bilingual people are more efficient at higher-level brain functions such as ignoring other irrelevant information.
In conclusion, research has shown that bilingualism does not lead to confusion, nor does it have any inherent negative impact on development. In the early stages of the acquisition of a second language, children hearing two languages can show some developmental lags relative to children who speak only one.
Yet all research points to the exact opposite–not only that, but bilingual students pick up certain pre-reading skills faster than their monolingual classmates. In fact, bilingualism is associated with many other cognitive benefits like stronger multitasking skills, creativity, and working memory.
Research has also shown a positive correlation between bilingualism and cognitive development, especially executive function. Bilingualism supports skills that are specific to executive function: careful attention to the target language, suppressing the non-target language and effectively switching between languages.
Because both of a bilingual person's language systems are always active and competing, that person uses these control mechanisms every time she or he speaks or listens. This constant practice strengthens the control mechanisms and changes the associated brain regions.
Although bilingual people are not necessarily “smarter” or more intelligent than monolingual people, they do have a stronger executive function which results in a better ability to switch between tasks, they also have more efficient monitoring systems and a heightened cognitive ability.
A series of studies show that on the basis of controlling language ability and short-term memory ability, bilingual children have significantly less reaction time than monolingual children, and show the ability to process conflict information faster and suppress interference information unrelated to the current task.
Bilingual learning has been shown to be associated with higher cognitive flexibility (Bialystok and Senman, 2004).
The most obvious difference they saw was in two brain regions associated with executive function, the prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex. In these regions, the Spanish-English bilingual babies had stronger brain responses to speech sounds, compared with English-only babies.
How does multilingualism and bilingualism affect academic learning? Being multilingual or bilingual often helps children learn at school because it helps them with problem-solving, multitasking, creativity and flexible thinking.
Research has shown that bilingual kids are constantly switching between two languages in their brain, which increases “cognitive flexibility,” the ability to switch between thinking about different concepts or multiple concepts at once, and “selective attention abilities,” the mental process of focusing on one task or ...
It allows us to focus better during a lecture and remember relevant information. Learning a second language can protect against Alzheimer's as well. Recent brain studies have shown that bilingual people's brains function better and for longer after developing the disease.
According to 2015 research from the Georgetown University Medical Centre, subjects who spoke two languages (bilinguals) had more gray matter in the brain (a very good thing) and better short-term memory, problem-solving skills, and attention management when compared to those who only spoke one language.
“When your brain processes language, it's not one place in the brain that processes language,” Marian says. “It's a network that's spread across all areas of the brain.” Because of that, bilingual brains have more pathways connecting different words, concepts and memories across different languages.
Summary: Speaking more than one language does not improve a person's general mental ability. However, while there is no cognitive advantage to being bilingual, there are broader social and lifestyle benefits that come from speaking multiple languages.
Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age. This view of bilingualism is remarkably different from the understanding of bilingualism through much of the 20th century.
The main reason suggested for bilinguals' advantage is their need to process and manage the two languages, which are simultaneously activated whenever one of the languages is used [8,9,10,11]. This simultaneous activation requires a higher working memory (WM) capacity.
Research suggests that as you learn or regularly speak a second language, it becomes constantly “active” alongside your native language in your brain. The parallel activation of the two languages creates competition across the two languages, making the bilingual a 'mental juggler'.
Bilingual people have more of these neurons and dendrites compared to people who speak only one language. This means that their grey matter is denser. Bilingualism also has an impact on white matter – that is, a system of nerve fibres which connect all four lobes of the brain.
Reduced cognitive development: Studies have shown that children who are bilingual tend to have lower IQ scores compared to monolingual children. Social and emotional difficulties: Children who are bilingual may feel caught between two cultures and struggle to find a sense of identity.
This study played a large role in our understanding of multilingualism and the effects that it has on the brain. Since the late 1970s, researchers have found more cognitive benefits of bilingualism, including better attention, task-switching, and protection against aging declines.
They found no group difference in the slopes of global cognitive decline (based on Mini Mental Status Examination scores) between monolingual and bilingual participants.