Keep your brain healthy: the additional benefits of being bilingual
Before the 1960s, bilingualism was considered a disadvantage for children learning to speak because they had to spend too much energy distinguishing between languages. In fact, more modern research has shown that this energy helps in various executive functions, such as the ability to concentrate and problem-solving.
When you use two or more languages to communicate, your brain works differently: two parts of your brain are active, for speaking and writing, and the other two parts are passive, for listening and reading.
There are three specific types of bilingualism:
Acompound bilingualis a child developing two languages simultaneously: many of the children at IMS already have two native languages that they are learning at home, neither of which may be Spanish or English. When they come to school, they are also immersed in those two languages and will absorb vocabulary from both languages.
Acoordinated bilingualis someone who uses two languages in two different contexts (such as school and home). Older students who have moved to a new country are often described this way.
Asubordinate bilingual, which is the case for many adults, is someone who filters a new language through their first. This is why learning multiple languages simultaneously is so easy for young children: they are using both sides of their brain and seem to have a more holistic understanding of the social and emotional contexts in each language. Being bilingual gives your brain notable advantages, with a greater density of gray matter containing neurons and synapses. This increased activity has been attributed to delaying the onset of degenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.
It is quite clear that, apart from the advantage of being able to speak more than one language, the route and method by which young children learn several languages simultaneously contributes to other cognitive advantages: improved memory and attention. Working memory, which is the temporary storage of information, tends to be better in bilingual children than in monolingual children.
So while being bilingual doesn’t necessarily make you smarter, it does make your brain healthier, more cognitive, and more actively engaged.
Give your children a head start in life and introduce them to another language as young as possible.
