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Advantage of Bilingual Children in Cognition

Psychology 317, Fall 2012

Knowing several languages heightens one's status in society and can widen opportunities in professional and personal arenas. There have been a number of studies showing bilingualism is also beneficial to the brain's activity, and the interaction of synapses and passages in the brain (Harris 1992). The changes in the brain would be much stronger in bilingual children, who are the main focus this research. A review of the literature on children who are bilingual compares them with children who are not (Bialystok 2011).

Advantages to bilingualism

As has been discussed, there are advantages to being bilingual beyond knowing another language. In children, bilingualism results in flexible cognition overall. Because a child knows more word for an object, he or she gains a more complex understanding of the world around them (Kovacs 2009). The bilingual child is able to be more knowledgeable, even though the measurements can differ depending on the additional language(s) the child knows (Harris 1992).

Some studies have shown children who are bilingual have a greater ability in memory (Bialystok 2011). This means they can refer back to something that has been presented to them and be able to remember it more ably than children who are not bilingual. Another cognitive ability that has been viewed in bilingual children is obstruction of information (Green 1998). They are able to ignore information without knowing about it or being distracted by it. It is a matter of brain function: in order for them to think in another language they need to block the first language which has become regular in their brain activity (Green 1998).

Older research claims children who are bilingual have a smaller vocabulary compared to children who are monolingual (Nauert 2010)l. While this could be true in some cases, it does not justify the fact that bilingual children are still more advanced with respect to cognitive tasks. Being bilingual can actually help prevent some psychological and brain diseases such as Alzheimer's (Nauert 2010).

The research project considers each of these elements in more detailed and provide specific fact findings of the followings: enhancing effect of cognition, how the brains of bilingual can process more knowledge than monolingual children, language and memory, bilingualism and obstruction, the myth of bilingual children and smaller vocabulary, and the role of bilingualism in preventing mental illness.

Method

The most useful source was the database of George Mason University.. On the library database PsyInfo, this researcher looked up "bilingual" and "cognition" which yielded too many results. A search on "the advantage in cognition in bilinguals" narrowed the topic. An age group between infants to 12 years was selected for further narrow the results. The journals provided considerable research on bilingual children and all the psychological and neurological studies that were done. Results were narrowed still further to the psychological components of bilingualism. A search was made on the "disadvantages of the bilingual children in cognition" but the results were not as much as the advantages.