WTVB – Mary Kuhlman
“A new study of bilingual and monolingual toddlers could be reason for parents to share this story in two languages. Research in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology has shown that children learning two languages perform better at certain problem-solving tasks than their monolingual peers. Cristina Crivello, a Ph.D. student at Concordia University in Montreal who led the study, said 1 1/2-year-old bilingual children have abilities that are beneficial for people at any age. “It’s these specific cognitive abilities, like selective attention and cognitive flexibility, where they have to focus on relevant information and ignore distracting information,” she said. Although there is no consensus yet on exactly how learning other languages improves the brain, Crivello suggested that switching between languages mirrors the process of switching between tasks.”(more)