What are the benefits of being bilingual?

The benefits to being bilingual far outweight its costs. There are three main cognitive benefits:

1. Bilingualism affects the development and efficiency  of the brain's multifactorial 'executive control system'.

The bilingual brain is used to handling two languages at the same time. This develops skills for functions such as inhibition (a cognitive mechanism that discards irrelevant stimuli), switching attention, and working memory.

These skills make up the brain's executive control system, which looks after high-level thought, multi-tasking, and sustained attention. Because bilingual people are used to switching between their two languages, they are also better at switching between tasks, even if these tasks are nothing to do with language.

People who speak two languages have also been shown to have more efficient monitoring systems. A 2009 study  showed that monolinguals and bilinguals respond similarly when the brain's monitoring system is not taxed, but in conditions requiring high monitoring demands, bilinguals were faster. Bilingual people also outperform monolingual people in spatial working memory tasks.

2. Bilingualism has widespread effects on the functional and structural properties of various cortical and subcortical structures in the brain.

Our brains change and adapt as a result of experience. Studies have shown that people who are multilingual have higher density of grey matter, and that older people who are bilingual tend to have better-maintained white matter in their brains.

So, does this make you smarter if you are bilingual? I’m afraid not. I don't know any study that shows a link between bilingualism and such concepts as executive intelligence, emotional intelligence or intelligence quotient.

3. Bilingualism promotes cognitive reserve in elderly people

Taking part in stimulating physical or mental activity can help maintain cognitive function, and delay the onset of symptoms in people suffering from dementia. The onset of dementia symptoms is significantly delayed - by as much as five years - in patients who are bilingual. The brains of bilingual patients with Alzheimer’s disease function cognitively at the same level. of monolingual patients who have suffered less brain degeneration.

Source: British Council Voices Magazine. Click here to read the full article