Bilingual households may improve infants' cognitive abilities

Mom speaks Norwegian and dad, Dutch. Confusing? Not necessarily. A child raised in such an environment might not only grow up to be bilingual, but even before learning to speak, he or she may have a cognitive advantage over infants of the same age whose parents speak only one language.

These findings emerged from a new study, conducted in Italy, whose results were published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the researchers, Dr. Jacques Mehler and Dr. Agnes Melinda Kovacs, the results clearly show that early exposure to two languages can train the mind and improve its cognitive performance, not just linguistic abilities as had been believed. They also concluded from their study that infants brought up listening to two different languages are more likely to be able to respond to and learn from two different vocal signals, as compared with infants of the same age whose parents speak one language.

The research was conducted using infants from the northern Italian city of Trieste, where many parents speak both Italian and Slovenian. As part of the study, researchers placed a screen in front of the infants and after sounding a note, the image of a baby appeared on one side of the screen. As this continued, the infants became accustomed to looking at that side. Then the researchers changed the sound and shifted the image of the baby to the other side of the screen.

The infants from bilingual households adjusted to the change and looked to the other side of the screen, while the infants from single-language households failed time and again. These results were apparent both when the sounds were meaningless and when the babies heard words in different languages.

Scientists have known that babies begin absorbing a language before they speak and that they can distinguish between the sounds of two different languages. Earlier studies have shown that exposure to two languages usually improves thought processes among children as well as grown-ups.

The new study is unique in that it compares cognitive performances among babies. The findings might lead to new ideas on how exposure to two languages trains infants' minds, even during that early stage in which they babble gibberish. However, the researchers say, the bilingual babies' early advantage does not necessarily lead to higher intelligence later on. Its long-term effects must still be researched.