![]() For example, life-long bilinguals are better at inhibitory control, the ability to ignore irrelevant information during a task. ![]() Growing evidence suggests that bilingualism provides cognitive benefits. Bilingualism may provide cognitive benefits While the biological reason for the critical period is yet to be understood, many scientists suggest that age-related changes in brain plasticity –the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience–may be the underlying factor. The researchers found that the ability to learn a new language drops significantly at around 17 years of age. The quiz went viral, was shared more than 300,000 times on Facebook, and drew 680,333 participants. Importantly, they also asked participants to provide demographic information, which included their native language, the age of first exposure to English, and current age. The group turned to Facebook as a solution to this problem they came up with a grammar quiz and spread the link via Facebook. To measure a statistically meaningful result, several hundred thousand participants were needed, which was a huge obstacle for the study. The authors aimed to understand how language learning changes with age, focusing on the ability to discern grammatically incorrect sentences. Yet, there is no consensus on at precisely what age the critical period occurs.Ī recent study performed at MIT suggests that the critical period may end in late adolescence. It is widely believed that a ‘critical period’, a point when one’s ability to learn a new language dramatically drops, exists for language learning. It takes much more time and effort to become fluent, and even then, it’s hard to reach native-level proficiency. Unlike babies, adults have difficulty learning a new language. Unfortunately, it is harder to become bilingual as we age. Bilingual infants’ brains show a similar pattern of activity in response to Spanish and English (Top), whereas monolingual infants’ brains show weaker pattern of activity in response to Spanish (Bottom). Figure 1: Bilingual and monolingual infants’ brain response to Spanish and English. Hence, before they reach their first birthday, before they can even speak fluently, babies exposed to two languages hear speech sounds differently than their monolingual peers. In contrast, bilingual infants’ brains exhibited a similar pattern of activity in response to Spanish and English words. Monolingual infants showed different patterns of brain activities in response to Spanish and English many parts of the brain showed weaker activity in response to Spanish than to English. The researchers measured the activity of different parts of the brain that responded to Spanish and English. ![]() To understand whether these babies can discern and process both languages early in development, a group of researchers examined two groups of 11-month-old babies : “monolingual infants” who had no regular exposure to languages other than English, and “bilingual infants” who had a regular exposure to Spanish and English through interactions with native speakers from birth. This illustrates that babies can discern different sounds very early in development, which is a key to learning a language.īabies raised in a bilingual environment are exposed to two languages. ![]() They found that the brain of preterm infants exhibits distinct blood flow patterns in response to different phonemes, a sound unit of language (e.g., ga versus ba ). Neuroscientists measured a brain blood flow patterns of preterm infants (born between 28 and 32 weeks into pregnancy) listening to different sounds. Not only can a fetus listen, but they also respond differently to different sounds in language. The premature auditory system develops at around 33 weeks into pregnancy, so a fetus is capable of listening by then. When and how do infants start learning language? Surprisingly, the learning process is thought to start before we are born. The younger we are, the faster we learn new languages–the fastest language learners in the world are babies. A research conducted by a group in Concordia University adds another reason why bilingualism should be encouraged–cognitive benefits. There is a debate whether foreign language education is beneficial, but many would agree that bilingualism helps individuals communicate with a diverse group of people and even gives advantages in the job market. In an ever more international era, these numbers are shocking. While 92% of primary and secondary students in Europe learn a foreign language, only 20% of primary and secondary school students in the U.S.
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