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The most interesting part: > Age plays a role too. Studies suggest that the effects of languages on the brain are stronger for young children and the old than

The most interesting part: > Age plays a role too. Studies suggest that the effects of languages on the brain are stronger for young children and the old than they are for young adults. Bilingual tots seem to outperform in cognitive development in the early years, but their monolingual classmates may catch up with them later. One meta-analysis on the topic found that 25 studies of 45 found a bilingual advantage in children younger than six, while only 17 found them in children aged 6-12. That's gonna be a let down to most people who read the title and make assumptions.

zelphirkalt 1y ago
Could be explained by education systems. If all these children go through the same kind of schools, then the cognitive development may be limited there, allowing the monolingual kids to catch up, while wasting the potential of the bilingual ones.
_Algernon_ 1y ago
That comparison is meaningless without doing a proper meta-analysis. What is the sample size of these studies? What are the effect sizes? That's more important than the number of studies that go in each direction.
mrangle 1y ago
I wonder how is this cognitive development progress was measured, and I question the results of whichever study this refers to. I acknowledge that "bilingual tots seem to outperform in cognitive development in the early years" seems both intuitive and logical. This is a string of words that we'd expect to find together. We'd almost be offended if they weren't. Because both bilingualism and learning more things are better. My concern over the reference to this research is that early cognitive development milestones are largely language acquisition milestones, and it has long been known that language acquisition is somewhat behind in bilingual tots. Rather than accelerated. Generally, it is assumed that bilingual child development metrics will later catch up to those of their peer group. Which is the inverse of "their monolingual classmates may catch up with them later". Bilingual children aren't actually cognitively delayed, if only marginally on the face of their assessments, but rather they tend toward having a temporary delay in language acquisition due to to their bilingual environment. With any cognitive development disadvantage that this could theoretically cause essentially being non-risk. However, I've never seen anything that indicates performant development due to bilingualism. Just the opposite, to a statistically relevant degree. Even if only marginally behind. This is textbook information and part of the body of knowledge of language acquisition. It's not a vanguard research topic.
sinuhe69 1y ago
I don’t know but my limited personal experience has been totally different. Not only learn my children their primary languages faster, they also learn other languages more quickly. I don’t know if that affects their IQ but I don’t see math or science as a much different language. Of course, speaking a language is only part of the bigger puzzle: staying curious and immersing yourself in the cultures and thoughts of people from diverse backgrounds is IMO even more important and beneficial. While translation is excellent and very convenient today due to the globalization, I’d say it's very hard to understand the people of a particular culture if you don’t understand what they natively and rawly say on various social media platforms. Mainstream media and news paper don’t necessarily reflect these sentiments and predispositions. In fact, they may even hide these “small voices” very well. So, there are clear benefits to using many languages.

zelphirkalt 1y ago

Could be explained by education systems. If all these children go through the same kind of schools, then the cognitive development may be limited there, allowing the monolingual kids to catch up, while wasting the potential of the bilingual ones.

_Algernon_ 1y ago

That comparison is meaningless without doing a proper meta-analysis. What is the sample size of these studies? What are the effect sizes? That's more important than the number of studies that go in each direction.

mrangle 1y ago

I wonder how is this cognitive development progress was measured, and I question the results of whichever study this refers to. I acknowledge that "bilingual tots seem to outperform in cognitive development in the early years" seems both intuitive and logical. This is a string of words that we'd expect to find together. We'd almost be offended if they weren't. Because both bilingualism and learning more things are better. My concern over the reference to this research is that early cognitive development milestones are largely language acquisition milestones, and it has long been known that language acquisition is somewhat behind in bilingual tots. Rather than accelerated. Generally, it is assumed that bilingual child development metrics will later catch up to those of their peer group. Which is the inverse of "their monolingual classmates may catch up with them later". Bilingual children aren't actually cognitively delayed, if only marginally on the face of their assessments, but rather they tend toward having a temporary delay in language acquisition due to to their bilingual environment. With any cognitive development disadvantage that this could theoretically cause essentially being non-risk. However, I've never seen anything that indicates performant development due to bilingualism. Just the opposite, to a statistically relevant degree. Even if only marginally behind. This is textbook information and part of the body of knowledge of language acquisition. It's not a vanguard research topic.

sinuhe69 1y ago

I don’t know but my limited personal experience has been totally different. Not only learn my children their primary languages faster, they also learn other languages more quickly. I don’t know if that affects their IQ but I don’t see math or science as a much different language. Of course, speaking a language is only part of the bigger puzzle: staying curious and immersing yourself in the cultures and thoughts of people from diverse backgrounds is IMO even more important and beneficial. While translation is excellent and very convenient today due to the globalization, I’d say it's very hard to understand the people of a particular culture if you don’t understand what they natively and rawly say on various social media platforms. Mainstream media and news paper don’t necessarily reflect these sentiments and predispositions. In fact, they may even hide these “small voices” very well. So, there are clear benefits to using many languages.