Functional imaging methods show differences in the pattern of cerebral activation associated with the subject's native language (L1) compared with a second language (L2). In a recent PET investigation on bilingualism we showed that auditory processing of stories in L1 (Italian) engages the temporal lobes and temporoparietal cortex more extensively than L2 (English). However, in that study the I...

This study aims to contribute current research on bilingual children's vocabulary studies and the home environment. It explored how environments affected L1 L2 acquisition. The children in this small-scale (n=40) were exposed Brunei Malay (L1) alongside English (L2) from a young age, classifying as first-language learners (BFL). examines children’s language development it used knowledge measuri...

Childhood bilingualism has long been associated with enhanced creative performance. The neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, however, have yet to be characterized. Research suggests bilingualism modifies neural networks for executive control. Such changes, which can be assessed with estimation of neural signal complexity, are thought to increase information processing capacity. We thus...

Certain aspects of meta-linguistic awareness are known to be essential for bilingual children’s literacy acquisition. Phonological awareness is one of these skills. Beginning with a discussion of a pivotal developmental research model of control & analysis of cognitive skills in bilinguals, this review will discuss several studies that explored phonological awareness in bilinguals who knew diff...

Recent scholarship claims that bilingualism has a positive effect on the academic achievement of immigrant children. According to this perspective, growing up speaking two languages is beneficial because it stimulates cognitive development and allows immigrants a means of resisting unwanted assimilation. Immigrant children who are fluent bilinguals can use their native-language ability to maint...

Few educational systems have been developed to specifically address the needs of young children who are acquiring two languages at the same time. In this paper, we present a prototype of a CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) system for English and Japanese bilingual children aged between 6 and 8. The prototype recreates a bilingual learning environment and was tested with 4 bilingual chi...

Recent evidence suggests a positive impact of bilingualism on cognition, including later onset of dementia. However, monolinguals and bilinguals might have different baseline cognitive ability. We present the first study examining the effect of bilingualism on later-life cognition controlling for childhood intelligence. We studied 853 participants, first tested in 1947 (age = 11 years), and ret...

This study investigates constraints on ultimate attainment in second language (L2) pronunciation in a direct comparison of perceived foreign accent of 40 late L2 learners and 40 late first language (L1) attriters of German. Both groups were compared with 20 predominantly monolingual controls. Contrasting participants who acquired the target language from birth (monolinguals, L1 attriters) with ...

Bi- and multilingualism has been shown to have positive effects on the attainment of third and additional languages. These effects, however, depend on the type of bi- and multilingualism and the status of the languages involved (Cenoz, 2003; Jessner, 2006). In this exploratory trend study, we revisit Cummins' Threshold Hypothesis (1979), claiming that bilingual children must reach certain level...