Bilingualism On Cognitive Ability

Bilingualism itself can be held responsible for increased levels of executive control and higher brain plasticity. In order to maintain a balance between two languages, the bilingual brain depends on executive functions, a monitoring system of general cognitive abilities that includes processes such as attention and inhibition. Laurent et. al 2010 aimed to determine bilingual experience enhances the development of phonological awareness. Children were exposed to early learning of a second language between the school grades 3-5 in primary school, ages ranging from 8 to 10 years old. The goal of this study was to promote the concept of “bilingual advantage” (Laurent, 2010) as researchers measured exactly how long children required second language exposure in order to influence phonological awareness. These researchers expected that after 4 years

Having the ability to speak more than one language influences one’ life deeply. Speaking two or more languages can affect someone from being infants to old age. Bhattacharjee continues with, “The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there

While some may think that this is not certain studies have proven otherwise. In The Power of a Bilingual Brain, Jeffery Kluger states that, “Research is increasingly showing that the brains of people who know two or more languages….. Multilingual people, studies show, are better at reasoning, at multitasking, at grasping and reconciling conflicting ideas.”(1) Clearly, a bilingual education places students a step ahead not only in their education careers but, as well as in their daily life’s outside school. Jeffery Kluger discusses how a bilingual brain is not necessarily smarter brain, but is a more flexible and practical brain. Evidently, demonstrating to us one of the many benefits of a bilingual

Background: It is popular belief that bilingualism enhances cognitive performance. Because cognitive performance translates to academic performance, this study collected information on subjects’ bilingualism (if any) and overall academics. Investigating this relationship would reveal the effects bilingualism has on academic abilities. Such information could help to either reinforce the need to learn foreign languages or expose the insignificant academic benefits of learning other languages

“Cognitive functions can be defined as cerebral activities that lead to knowledge, encompass reasoning, memory, attention, and language that leads directly to the attainment of information and, thus, knowledge” (What are cognitive functions). Many students at Doulos are unaware of the benefits of knowing two languages. Ironically students also don’t know that their own brain and its skills are improving because of their second language. Doulos teaches classes throughout the whole day in both English and Spanish. Students are regularly changing between languages and their brain is always active with both languages. “This constant practice strengthens the control mechanisms and changes the associated brain regions” (Marian, Viorica, and Anthony Shook). People who are bilingual are capable of switching between tasks more efficiently. “For example, when bilinguals have to switch from categorizing objects by color (red or green) to categorizing them by shape, they do so more rapidly than monolingual people, reflecting better cognitive control when changing strategies on the fly” (Marian, Viorica, and Anthony Shook). Students’ cognitive and sensory process skills are more developed due to being bilingual (Marian, Viorica, and Anthony Shook). These improvements allow students to better process and understand information in different environments, thus leading to better

The ability to inhibit thoughts has effect on EF (executive functioning), and thus inhibit ability is increased in two-language children. It requires halting the thought process of one specific language. Through this, two-language children also seem to have an increased ability in focusing their attention, which could be due to the ability to inhibit outside, intrusive influence (such as their other language shining through their speech). They also can pick and choose one correct solution in a conflicting situation, again because of this inhibition practice. It is unknown what level of bilingualism is

In an article called “Being Bilingual Makes You Smarter” it states that “the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function,a command system that directs the attention processes

For language development, there is a popular debate on whether there is an advantage to being a bilingual individual. There is a large amount of evidence that supports both sides of the argument. In terms of bilingual advantage, various studies focus on how bilingual or multilingual individuals outperform individuals on executive control tasks that are either linguistic of non-linguistic in nature. The advantages stem from greater foundations of executive function, such as cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control, in bilinguals than in non-bilinguals. Young and older bilingual individuals show a cognitive advantage because they outperform non-bilingual individuals during executive function tasks for enhanced attentional control, conflict

Valian believes that while bilingualism is only one of the factors that may boost cognitive functioning and that data from children and young adults are currently inconclusive, a bilingual advantage seems to be present among older people. Indeed, as Valian (2014a) suggests, studying younger individuals is difficult per se because they are exposed to so many other activities that may enhance executive function. There are currently very few studies on bilingualism in the aging

Due to the rise in bilingual programs in the U.S., researchers began to wonder how a child’s brain was able to process two languages simultaneously. To their utter amazement, students who were bilingual benefit in multiple areas of their lives. For example, they have greater cognitive flexibility, superior language skills, and a higher IQ. Nevertheless, some parents, teachers, and even some researchers were concerned that immersing students in the target language, with no instruction in the first language, may cause students to lose their ability to converse/use their first language. In other words, fear began to rise that teaching in only the desired second language may cause the students to favor that language over their native language. This is where the research controversies

This site contains information on 8,000 children across different ages and different levels of cognitive abilities. Three groups of kids with varying parental backgrounds were tested on their cognitive abilities. The three groups were children with two UK parents, two foreign born parents, and one foreign/one UK parent. According to Clifton-Sprigg, it has been established that early education in language influences the child’s ability to learn new skills. This poses the question whether being bilingual will be an advantage or disadvantage to the child. In this case linguists have shared opposing views on whether the child benefits from being bilingualism. Some linguists argue that bilingualism can give a distinct advantage because it improves the understanding of some concepts and improves creative ability. Other linguists offer a different perspective saying that children who are monolingual spend less time learning the language which allows them to pick up other skills easier. An observation done was that a child's linguistic ability is dependent on the parents and how suited they are to teach the child language. Problems become apparent

The regular need to select a target language is argued to enhance executive control. We investigated whether this enhancement stems from a general effect of bilingualism (the representation of two languages) or from a modality constraint that forces language selection. Bimodal bilinguals can, but do not always, sign and speak at the same time. Their two languages involve distinct motor and perceptual systems, leading to weaker demands on language control. We compared the performance of 15 monolinguals, 15 bimodal bilinguals, and 15 unimodal bilinguals on a set of flanker tasks. There were no group differences in accuracy, but unimodal bilinguals were faster than the other groups; bimodal bilinguals did not differ from monolinguals. These results trace the bilingual advantage in cognitive control to the unimodal bilinguals experience controlling two languages in the same

Scientifically, the performance of the brain’s executive function in a bilingual brain excels the executive function in a monolingual brain. Executive function is the ability for the brain to function and preform regular behaviors. In younger children, “developing bilingually show improved and earlier development of nonlinguistic executive function and the effects of aging on declining executive function are ameliorated in bilingual individual” (Stocco,

Bialystok, Craik, and Luk (2012) investigated the growing body of evidence examining the presence of a bilingual advantage in terms of enhanced executive control: the group of cognitive skills involved in language switching, working memory and inhibition. Furthermore, the researchers examined evidence supporting the notion that differences in brain structure and function helped to explain the bilingual advantage (Bialystok et al., 2012). In regards to joint activation in bilinguals, researchers found that both languages are always activated to some degree (Bialystok et al., 2012) Though this may cause language interference errors, bilinguals can select their target language with remarkable accuracy (Bialystok et al., 2012).

Bilingualism can be defined as speaking and understanding two languages (MacLeod, Fabiano-Smith, Boegner-Pagé & Fontolliet, 2012). The main empirical finding for the effect of bilingualism on cognition is in the evidence for enhanced executive control in bilingual speakers (Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2009). Executive functions encompass cognitive processes involved in control and management, such as planning, working memory, attention, problem solving, verbal reasoning, inhibition, mental flexibility, task