Babies who are uncover to two languages ( not including sister talk ) instead of one during the first yr of their life may spring up a cognitive advantage over their monolingual opposite number , attaining better problem - solve skills . And while most babies do n’t actually have many problem to solve , this other cost increase to their mental progress could stand them in good stead for their adult lives .
Previous research has show that people who speak multiple languages tend to haveenhanced connectivityin areas of the head involved inexecutive function , which refer to a range of cognitive capabilities related to preparation , reasoning and job solving . However , researcher from the University of Washington were dandy to read if this neurological side - effect of multilingualism could be detected in babies who had not yet begun to talk .
To test this , they recruit 16 11 - month - one-time babies ( via their parents , obviously ) , one-half of which came from families that only speak English while the other half come up from English - Spanish bilingual families . The researchers used magnetoencephalography ( MEG ) to mensurate the brain activity of the babies as they listened to a stream of nonmeaningful oral communication sounds that are common to either English , Spanish or both , as outlined in the video below .
Reporting their findings in the journalDevelopmental Science , the team discovered that the baby from bilingual families parade solid brain response to both the Spanish and English speech sound , indicating that they were able to discern and litigate both type as “ phonetic auditory sensation ” rather than general noises , or “ acoustic sound . ” babe from English - talk families , however , only respond to English sounds , suggesting that the Spanish sounds were not phonetically process .
This result indicates that , even before sister start talking , they are able to recognize linguistic sound . However , a much more important finding was that the neurological responses of bilingual babies fall out in certain brain region responsible for executive map , such as theprefrontal and orbitofrontal pallium . In contrast , the brain responses of monolingual babies did not extend into these regions .
As such , the researcher reason out that the penury to severalize between two language portray a cognitive challenge to bilingual babies that requires them to hire these mastermind areas , thereby strengthening their executive function capacities . According to meditate atomic number 27 - authorNaja Ferjan Ramírez , this finding “ suggests that bilingualism form not only spoken language exploitation , but also cognitive development more loosely . ”
In other words , child who are let on to multiple languages are potential to get a head teacher start at strengthening the connexion in the part of the mind that are necessary for pliant thought and problem clear . ¡ Qué bien !
