Researchers found that young adults who knew two languages performed better on attention tests and had better concentration compared to those who only spoke one language. They also respond faster or more accurately than their monolingual peers, according to Kapa and Colombo, 2013.
Bilingual people enjoy advantages: they have enriched cognitive control, it's likely that they have improved metalinguistic awareness, as well as better memory, visual-spatial skills and even creativity. There are also social benefits from being bilingual.
Bilingual adults and children seem to have social and emotional benefits like being able to show better self-control and internalize negative states like anxiety, aggression, anger, loneliness or low self-esteem less frequently. They have greater tolerance and less racism.
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.
Starter Questions:
Which was the hardest to learn? Do you think learning a language when you are a child is easier than when you are an adult? What are the benefits of learning a second language? Do you think that being able to speak more than one language makes you smarter than being monolingual?
Studies have found that children who speak 2 languages (bilingual) tend to be better than monolingual children at multitasking. They are also better at focusing their attention—for example, homing in on a voice in a noisy cafeteria. To learn more, scientists at Northwestern University studied 48 high school students.
The brain uses a shared mechanism for combining words from a single language and for combining words from two different languages, indicating that language switching is natural for those who are bilingual.
This theory was developed by Jim Cummins, in the early 1980's. It stated that the two languages used by an individual, though on the surface apparently separate, function through the same central cognitive system. This was first put forward by Toukomaa and Skutnabb-Kangas in 1977.
Early second language learners have stronger executive function than their counterparts. This means that they're often better at planning, focusing, and achieving goals. They're also better multitaskers and critical thinkers, and some research suggests that bilingualism also provides a significant creativity boost.
When viewed language and mind as a whole system, it is evident that the functions of language are part of the brain system at the same time as being involved in the workings of the mind. Moreover, information is exchanged between language and each of perception, memory, and consciousness in both directions.
12 2.3 Cognitive Benefits
Such benefits include, but are not limited to: heightened academic performance, improved brain function, and reduced risk of age-related cognitive impairment and disease.
Many studies have shown that bilingual experience can promote the development of children's metalanguage cognition and reading skills. They are found to be better than monolingual children in the flexibility of lexical- semantic connection.
Research has found that babies raised in bilingual households show better self-control,8 a key indicator of school success. Bilingual and biliterate individuals have the opportunity to participate in the global community in more ways, get information from more places, and learn more about people from other cultures.
Bilingual learning has been shown to be associated with higher cognitive flexibility (Bialystok and Senman, 2004). Cognitive flexibility refers to an individual's ability to switch between different task states and mental stereotypes (Miyake et al., 2000).
Another study used bilingualism, rather than education, as a measure of cognitive reserve to examine the impact on CSF biomarkers but found no differences between cognitively normal monolinguals and bilinguals in CSF Aβ levels.
Language learning helps improve people's thinking skills and memory abilities. Bilingual students concentrate better, ignoring distractions more effectively than those who only speak one language.
In Vygotsky's view, the acquisition of language is a crucial part of cognitive development. After children acquire language, they don't just go through a set series of stages. Rather, their cognitive development depends on interactions with adults, cultural norms, and their environmental circumstances.
On the other hand, some of the disadvantages of bilingualism are an apparent delay in language acquisition; interference between the two phonological, lexical, and grammatical systems; and a possible decrease in vocabulary in both languages.
Our results suggest a protective effect of bilingualism against age-related cognitive decline independently of CI.
There are three theories that make up the cognitive theories for bilingualism; The Balance Theory, The Iceberg Analogy, and The Thresholds Theory. Within the Iceberg Analogy it broke town the 6 parts of the Common Underlying Proficiency.
Compared to normal monolinguals, normal bilinguals have more gray matter in these areas, particularly left inferior frontal gyrus, and greater frontal white matter tracts[19,20].
Bilingual experience makes gray matter denser, so you have more cells. This is an indication of a healthier brain. Results from a study measuring gray-matter volumes in monolingual or bilingual undergraduates. Red areas indicate where gray-matter volumes were greater in one group versus the other.
“Overall, bilinguals have developed different brain regions to perform tasks than the ones used by monolinguals,” Bialystok sums up. What remains a mystery is how these changes in brain 'wiring' improve the performance and cognitive reserve of people who speak two languages.
According to a historical review in "The Journal of Genetic Psychology," various researchers held these beliefs, noting a "problem of bilingualism" or the "handicapping influence of bilingualism." Following studies reported that bilinguals performed worse in IQ tests and suffered in most aspects of language development ...