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The Sooner You Expose A Baby ToA Second Language, The
Smarter
Theyll Be
by LAURIE VAZQUEZ
April 8, 2016
A new study shows that babies raised in bilingual environments
develop core
cognitive skills like decision-making and problem-solving --
before they evenspeak.
The study, out of the University of Washington, tested 1 babies.
!alf came
from "nglish-speaking households and half came from "nglish- and
#panish-
speaking households. The babies listen to a variety of speech
sounds, frompreverbal to "nglish- and #panish-specific sounds.
$esearchers monitored the
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babies% responses to the sounds using magnetoencephalography
&'"(),
which helped them clearly identify which parts of the brain were
activated
via electromagnetic activity. *ou will never see a more cuddly
scientific
setup+
The babies from "nglish- and #panish-speaking households had
lots of
activity in the prefrontal corte and orbitofrontal corte -- the
regions of thebrain responsible for eecutive functions, like
decision-making and problem-
solving. ur results suggest that before they even start talking,
babies raised
in bilingual households are getting practice at tasks related to
eecutive
function,/ said lead author 0aa 2eran $am3re4 in apress release.
56abies
raised listening to two languages seem to stay 7open7 to the
sounds of novel
languages longer than their monolingual peers, which is a good
and highly
adaptive thing for their brains to do,5 co-author 8atricia 9uhl
said in the samerelease.
That adaptive mechanism reaps enormous benefits for both babies
and adults.
'any studies, like this one out of the0ational :enter for
6iotechnology
;nformation, have shown that bilingual adults have better
eecutive brain
functions than adults who only speak one language. That means
bilingual
adults are better able to switch focus between tasks, recall
memories, and
demonstrate higher-level problem-solving and planning skills.
6ilingual kids
demonstrate those skills, too. 8lus, all of those eecutive brain
functions arekey to success in school, and academic success is a
big indicatorof long-termhappiness.
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1. ;f you%re already bilingual, or part of a bilingual
household, then try the
one parent, one language/ method. 6asically, clarify which
parent
speaks which language to the baby. That way, everyone knows what
to
epect - and your baby knows how to respond.
=. ;f you aren%t already bilingual, that%s okay> *ou can
still epose your
child to different languages.
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