Predicting multilingual effects on executive function and individual connectomes in children: An ABCD study

Learning multiple languages as a child bestows non-linguistic benefits

22 March 2022

Children raised to speak multiple languages show enhanced connectivity between different brain regions compared to their monolingual peers.

There has been considerable debate on whether learning multiple languages during childhood bestows benefits on the developing brain and behaviour, with some studies suggesting there are measurable advantages while others finding none.

Now, a team that included two researchers from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has found that multilingual nine and ten year olds outperformed monolingual peers at working memory tasks.

They also showed the connectivity differences were so large that a machine-learning algorithm could accurately distinguish between the brains of monolingual and multilingual children when fed data on whole-brain functional connectivity.

These results imply that learning multiple languages while a child enhances both executive function and brain connectivity.

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References

1. PNAS 118, e2110811118 (2021). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2110811118