The Royal Society of Edinburgh Lecture Oban High School Why Bilingualism Boosts Your Mind at all Ages

Professor Antonella Sorace FRSE, Professor of Developmental Linguistics, University of Edinburgh and Dr Thomas Bak, Human Cognitive Neuroscience Team, University of Edinburgh
Wednesday 3 February 2010 Report by Matthew Shelley

Why Bilingualism Boosts Your Mind at all Ages

While the number of bilingual families is rising, it is far from the norm for children in mainstream Scottish, or British, society to be brought up speaking more than one language. Antonella Sorace, Professor of Developmental Linguistics at Edinburgh University and Dr Thomas Bak, of the Universitys Cognitive Neuroscience team, examined some of the advantages bilingualism can offer in childhood and later in life. The lectures took place at Oban High School, where the speakers were welcomed by Head of Languages Helen Hope. The session was chaired by Sergio Della Sala, Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh.

One Brain Two Languages: Myths, Facts and Advantages of Child Bilingualism Professor Antonella Sorace
In the UK we tend to regard bilingualism as something special, but in most parts of the world it is normal to grow up speaking two, or more, languages. This is despite the fact that, in Britain, we live in a society with tremendous international mobility and in which there are many multilingual groups. Recent research suggests that at least 161 languages are spoken in Scottish schools. This linguistic diversity creates a real need for information about how bilingualism works this diversity is something precious, its something we want to maintain, said Professor Sorace. The survival of languages spoken by minority groups, such as Gaelic, depends heavily on persuading each generation to pass them on to the next. In order to encourage and enable parents, and others, to pass languages on, it is important to understand how children learn languages. One of the problems that we have to face is that there are a lot of misconceptions about bilingualism, so because of these negative attitudes, sometimes children dont have the opportunity to develop more than one language, even when they could, said Professor Sorace. These misconceptions make it harder to maintain minority languages, not least because they can raise doubts in parents about what is best for their child. The Professor outlined a series of common myths about bilingualism: it delays a childs mental development; it causes confusion so the child learns neither language properly; its only useful if the languages are widely spoken; it happens spontaneously if both parents are native speakers of another language.

The Professor said the first of these ideas seems to rely on the curious idea that a childs mind is like a box with limited space, so you overfill it by trying to force in two languages. The reality is that the brain is very flexible, and certainly not geared to be monolingual. Indeed, the delight about learning languages at an early age is that it is almost effortless. If there is sufficient exposure, encouragement, and if it is fun, then children will learn two, or even three, languages. According to Professor Sorace, research demonstrates that there are significant advantages in bilingualism whether this involves learning from birth or a little later in childhood. These include greater tolerance of differences, interest in other countries, and having access to two cultures. They may also have future advantages in the job market, she added. There are other less well-known benefits, such as gaining an automatic understanding of how language works. By having two names for objects, such as an apple, they understand that words and labels are a matter of convention and not natural that they are cultural tools. This may be why bilingual children often find it easier to learn third and even fourth languages later on. Bilingual children also find it easier to recognise sounds in spoken language. This can give them a head start when they are learning to read in languages like English or Gaelic because they are quicker at grasping that letters on a page correspond to spoken sounds. In fact, bilingual children are often more precocious readers. Far from leading to confusion, research shows that babies of three months old are already able to distinguish between languages, even when they are very similar, such as Spanish and Catalan. Nor do children inappropriately mix up languages in conversation. Where people do mix it is not random, but according to complex rules. In some cultures the capacity to jump between languages is a valued skill. Bilingual children learn quickly whom to address in what language, which means they have taken the major psychological step of being able to put themselves in someone elses shoes. According to Professor Sorace, the ability to distinguish between what they know and what someone else knows emerges around a year earlier in bilingual youngsters. Similarly, tests have shown that their attention levels, ability to switch tasks requiring different instructions, and capacity to filter out distractions are also better. Overall, the Professor said, bilingual children are more flexible at reasoning, which can be useful in many situations. This appears to be because they get very good at blocking out one language when they are using the other, but being able to switch to the other straight away. These kinds of benefits exist regardless of what the languages are. Whether they are spoken by 50 people or five billion people is completely irrelevant, and this is another reason for keeping minority languages active, said Professor Sorace. In looking at potential disadvantages, she said that some bilingual children start talking a little later, but still within normal boundaries. They may start off with a smaller vocabulary in each of the languages, but the number of words they know across the two can be greater. If parents are to succeed in bringing their children up to be bilingual, they cannot leave it to chance. Transmission between generations means they must make a substantial effort to ensure the children get lots of exposure to each language and feel that it is valued. Where this is done, she concluded, it is an investment which will prove valuable for the rest of their childs life. Professor Sorace encouraged anyone with an interested in the issues she raised to visit the Bilingualism Matters website at www.bilingualism-matters.org.uk/

Bilingualism in Later Life: a Protection against Dementia? Dr Thomas H Bak

Dr Bak, who grew up in the Polish city of Krakow but had a German mother, opened by saying his own family had worried that raising children bilingually could cause confusion. Nonetheless, he was exposed to German at home and succeeded in picking it up. Subsequently he went to universities in Hamburg and Freiburg, and later took up posts in Switzerland, then in Cambridge and now in Edinburgh. In Edinburgh Dr Bak has maintained his interest in language disorders, but is now also studying dementia. That days news headlines pointed to the rapidly growing demands being placed on the NHS by the increasing number of patients with dementia. Dr Bak added that medical science has had little success in finding drugs to prevent or treat dementia the best available can stall its progress for around a year but are very expensive. There is, however, evidence to suggest that bilingual people may have highly significant advantages in coping with dementia. Work with students in their 20s shows that those who are bilingual from an early age perform much better in certain complex cognitive tests. This was true whether the students had been raised from their earliest years as bilingual or had learned a second language between the age of around four and puberty. According to Dr Bak the generally higher performance of bilinguals over monolinguals in nonverbal reasoning does not appear to be confined to childhood, or early adulthood, but extends into old age. One study which points in this direction was by Kave and collaborators, which looked at around 800 people in Israel who had come from many different countries and backgrounds. The results were quite stunning, namely that the mental function was better the more languages people spoke, said Dr Bak. He added that further research is vital before the findings can be treated with confidence, as there might be other explanations for the findings and in order fully to understand the implications. If it is true that bilingualism leads to relatively higher mental function in later life, Dr Bak proposed that it should also impact on dementia, by delaying its onset, making its effects less pronounced, or by slowing its progress. A study by Bialystok conducted in Toronto, where 50% bilingualism means that languages spoken are recorded on patient notes when they are admitted to hospital, suggests this may be the case. A small sample of 184 patients presenting with dementia suggested that those who were bilingual were developing the condition four years later. Again, further research is needed as there are many unanswered questions. One important issue is whether the key factor is the learning of languages at an early age, regardless of what is spoken later in life, or whether the benefits rely on continued use. It is also unclear whether bilingualism helps with all forms of dementia, or just some. The degeneration caused by dementia tends to be gradual and it is difficult to pinpoint its start there normally seems to be a pre-clinical phase where the brain cells are dying but the symptoms are not noticed. In all but the final stages dementia also tends to be selective, so a patient may lose certain abilities, or kinds of memory, but retain others. This is important, as the less affected parts of the brain may help compensate for the more damaged areas. In considering why bilingualism might be an advantage, Dr Bak suggested that one option is that it stimulates the process that strengthens the links between different parts of the brain. Brains with more and better connections might take longer to start showing the effects of degeneration. Alternatively, the reason might be functional. Bilingual brains are better at control, resource allocation and switching from one area to another. So if one area is damaged they may be better at getting another to take over.

It is very much in the interests of the health service and policy makers to carry out more work to identify whether bilingualism does indeed have a major impact on dementia and to discover why. According to Dr Bak there are parts of Scotland, such as the Western Isles, which are ideal for research. This is because they have bilingual populations of similar social and genetic backgrounds. This would allow researchers to be sure that effects they were observing were related to bilingualism and not other factors. Such research programmes would benefit the communities themselves by attracting greater clinical resources and large amounts of funding, putting them specifically, and Scotland more generally, at the forefront of a hugely valuable area of study. This in turn, added Dr Bak, would promote the Gaelic language and strengthen the view that it is an advantage rather than a burden.

Questions:
Author Alan Cameron joined the speakers to take questions. Mr Cameron and Professor Sorace were due to take part in RSE sessions on bilingualism with high school students the following day. Asked how it would be possible to encourage the survival of minority languages, Professor Sorace said it is important to persuade parents that they are doing their children a great favour by raising them bilingually. Questioned on the benefits of new software that claims to provide brain training, Professor Della Sala said there is no evidence that it is of any more use than doing crosswords. On the subject of whether bilingualism would help students in their exams, Professor Sorace said it could be a factor, along with hard work and enthusiasm. This is not least because bilingual people tend to be better at focusing on the task in hand and ignoring distractions. Mr Cameron agreed, adding that evidence from Scotland supports this idea as it shows very high exam performances amongst Chinese and Gaelic speakers. A similar positive effect of bilingualism can also be seen elsewhere in the UK; for example in Wales, where children attending Welsh-medium schools tend to come out with not just an excellent grasp of Welsh but also better English. The evening ended with a vote of thanks for the speakers.

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