- 28 Sept 2021
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Multilingualism enhances our cognitive ability
Children who grow up with more than one language show increased mental flexibility and enhanced abstract thinking skills. Thanks to multilingualism, they also have a strengthened working memory and therefore a better capacity for learning to read and do arithmetic. These children perform better on complex cognitive tasks.
Studies show this, which simultaneously reveal that bilingual children are not only in a better position linguistically. The observed cognitive differences between monolingual and bilingual children indicate that learning more than one language affects the structure of the developing brain differently.
Bilingual children use more brain areas than monolingual children
Various studies show that the language-related areas of the brain in bilingual and monolingual children develop similarly, but certain parts related to both language and cognitive abilities are more active in bilingual children. It therefore tells us a lot that bilingual children use some parts of their brain more than monolingual children.
Multilingualism helps protect against mental decline and dementia
Not only children benefit from bilingualism, but adults do too. Furthermore, it is not necessary to grow up speaking two or more languages and to be fluent in each of them. The benefits of bilingualism in adults become particularly noticeable with regard to protecting mental health. This ability strengthens the brain against mental decline and dementia.
Bilingual people are more successful in life
Bilingual people are faster and more successful at tasks that require skills such as attention, planning and problem-solving. Speaking multiple languages also brings benefits for the brain. Studies suggest that people who speak three or more languages perform much better regarding psychological problems than bilingual people.
Multilingualism increases cognitive potential
The research is therefore in line with the widespread view that learning and education protect people against cognitive decline by increasing the brain's thinking potential. In other words, it supports the notion that learning and education strengthen „cognitive reserves“.
Your language courses in Basel
Therefore, it is definitely worth raising children bilingually or multilingually and never feeling that it is too late to learn foreign languages. Foreign languages can also be learned in adulthood. At SLA Basel find language courses for many languages and with professional language teachers it is fun to learn another language.