Their evaluation of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals established a link between the age of onset and language capabilities with increased bilingualism came later ages of Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Diego have revealed a potential solution to this impending public health crisis with bilingualism. By 2025, it is projected that over 7.1 million Americans will suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is an increasing issue for the developed world. If increased executive functions were not motivation enough to support bilingual childhood education, than consider the health benefits. But what gives bilingual children this edge above their monolingual classmates? While the mechanism underlying these results is not clear, researchers believe that bilingualism enhances a child’s attention to their surroundings and augments their experience in adapting to those changes. Comparatively, bilingual children often have more developed executive functions, that is, they are likely to excel at planning, problem solving and other mentally demanding tasks. Just as training regimens strengthen our muscles, repeatedly sorting out conflicts enhances the brain’s ability to process new material.Īs a result, bilingual children are often out performing their monolingual counterparts in a number of cognitive skills.

What researchers failed to realize when they first studied the bilingual brain was the seemingly distracted brain, with multiple activated regions, was actually a brain in training. Over the last fifteen years, neuroscientists, psychologists, and educators have amassed a wealth of information demonstrating numerous advantages of growing up bilingual.

At first, researchers interpreted this to be a handicap, but they were wrong. Initial brain imaging studies of bilingual individuals demonstrated that both language systems in the brain are active, even though only one system is in use. In spite of previous notions that learning a second language at an early age could actually be detrimental to a child’s cognitive abilities, recent psychology studies added to the growing body of evidence that being bilingual has a profound positive effect on the brain. If you are looking to give your child an academic boost, start with a second language. Not only will bilingual students be able to perform executive functions better, and likely for a prolonged period of neurological health, but they will also be more adept in conversation and social skills. The article concludes that bilingual persons display a great variety of linguistic experiences and that a large number of variables affect their performance in different intellectual tasks.īilingualism executive control development of language verbal abilities cognition.The benefits of learning a second language are clear for early childhood education. 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. Some of the advantages are an increase in mental flexibility a greater development of cognitive functions related to attention and inhibition the use of a larger number of cognitive strategies for the solution of problems an increase in the so-called metalinguistic consciousness and a better ability to communicate. The fact that bilingual individuals have to coordinate two linguistic systems implies both advantages and disadvantages. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF BILINGUALISM.

Advantages of being monolingual