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Language and cognitive skills
How bilingualism affects the brain essay
Discuss the effects of bilingualism on cognitive development
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A critical period is defined as a period during an organism’s development in which a particular skill or characteristic is believed to be most readily acquired. Linguistic communication is a unique feature of human beings. Early in life, the human brain is malleable for organizing itself in response to language input. As age progresses, the human brain is not as flexible in learning language. Eric Lenneberg, who was a linguist and neurologist, was the first to propose a critical period for language acquisition in 1967. He noticed that children were more likely than adults to recover language function and proposed that there was a critical period for exposure to language that lasted from birth to puberty (Finn, 2013). Since Lenneberg, …show more content…
Studies show that through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, different areas of the brain, specifically the Broca’s area, are activated when hearing an individual’s native language and their second language. In contrast, bilingual individuals who have learned their second language at an early age have shown activation in the same part of the brain, regardless of whether the native language or the second language is being heard. It is well established in adult studies that language is supported by a typically left lateralized, frontal-temporal functional network. Children activate the same frontal-temporal network, however, developmental differences include a less lateralized pattern and more activation of areas beyond the basic network (Berl et al., 2012). This is evidence that early in life the language center of the brain is quite flexible at attuning itself into various kinds of linguistic input. After the critical period starts to come to a close, the Broca’s area is no longer capable of being restructured to accommodate new languages (Heine, …show more content…
Cases involving “feral” and deprived children who have received language stimulation after the onset of puberty support the hypothesis of language being innate and only acquired during the critical period. In the case known as “Wild Boy of Averyron,” a boy given the name Victor was found roaming the woods of Averyon in Southern France about a century ago. Victor could not speak and behaved like a wild animal, indicating that he had been raised by wild animals, by eating off the floor, making canine noises, and disliking baths. A doctor by the name of Jean Marc Itard, who had developed a reputation for teaching the deaf how to speak, took Victor in. After many years of hard work, Itard failed to teach Victor no more than a few lexemes. Another case occurred in 1961 when a 13-year-old girl by the name of Genie, who had been isolated in a baby crib for most of her life and never spoken to, was discovered. Many psychologists spent years trying to teach Genie to speak, however, her speech did not advance beyond the grammatical competence of a
There’s a long-standing argument that most people resort to when discussing whether or not children are better suited to acquire a language over adults. The “critical period hypothesis” argues, “that children are superior to adults in learning second languages because their brains are more flexible.” (McLaughlin 2) This argument is true to some extent, however, experimental research has found that adolescents and adults are able to acquire languages better based on their controlled environment. Children, on the other hand, are better able to grasp a better understanding of the pronunciation of languages compared to adults. (McLaughlin
The brain has always had an amazing ability to adapt to its circumstances, an evolutionary edge, coupled with humanities capacity for reason and logic has made for quite a versatile organ. Researching neuroplasticity and non-synaptic plasticity can lead to a better understanding of how the brain adapts as well as how a normal brain functions. Neuroplasticity has the potential to affect brain mechanism related to emotional, motivational and cognitive processes (Crocker, Heller, Warren, O'Hare, Infantolino & Miller, 2012). Another functional and extraordinary ability of the brain is language. Language can define so much about how we think and yet after a brief window of time we find it very difficult to learn new languages. It is certainly not impossible to learn a second or third language but, it seems to be the case that plasticity occurs more with children (Giannakopoulou, Uther & Ylinen, 2013). Perhaps because plasticity can occur during developmental stages when language development is taking place or younger brains are just have more plastic potential. Understanding how plasticity and bilingualism interrelate can give us a better picture of how the brain deals with language, how this stimuli causes neuroplasticity to occur and how that plasticity can effect language functions. Does developing bilingual skills cause brain plasticity?
After Lenneberg's (1967) advanced analyses and interpretation of critical period in regards to first language acquisition, many researchers began to relate and study age issue in second language acquisition. In this area of study, Johnson and Newport (1989) is among the most prominent and leading studies which tries to seek evidence to test the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) in second language (L2) acquisition. This study aims to find identifying answers to the question of age-related effects on the proficiency for languages learned prior the puberty.
She mentioned that children between the ages three and seven could acquire any language better than an adult. For a long time, I was convinced that the reason why I could not acquire English well enough was due to age barrier. However, this is just a theory, and it is called Critical Period Hypothesis. Based on the key concept Critical Period hypothesis, the only advantage between a child and an adult is the motivation to acquiring language. An adult would feel more pressure to quickly acquire a language versus a child who would feel less pressured to do so. The difference is the method of instruction by two different teachers teaching at two different approaches. Language can be acquired by using the basic principle of BICS - first listening and then imitating the language. Learning the accent of another language can be more difficult for adults to acquire because their mind is nearly reaching a maturity state, which the brain might become complacent or used to the accent of the first language. Therefore, it may be hard to acquire another accent as adult. The real advantage between the age differences is the ability for a child to pick up the accent of a language better than an adult, because a child spends most of their time listening to their nurturer. It may be more difficult for an adult to spend all their time listening to their teacher without investing
Eric Lenneberg was the first to propose there existed a critical period to learn a first or native language that was between that began around two and ended with the onset of puberty around thirteen years old. Lenneberg theorized that language acquisition was not possible before age two because of a lack of maturation, while post-puberty acquisition is inhibited by a loss of cerebral placicity occuring when the cerebral dominance of the language function is complete, happening around the time of puberty (Kraschen). “Children deprived of language during this critical period show atypical patterns of brain lateralization” (intro to language) Lenneberg argued that lateralization of the brain during this critical period is key to language acquisition. “The human brain is primed to develop language in specific areas of the left hemisphere but the normal process of brain specialization depends on ear...
Hurford, James R.. "The evolution of the critical period for language acquisition." Cognition 40, no. 3 (1991): 159-201.
Social isolation is one of the most severe punishments known to man. However, for one innocent girl, known as Genie, social isolation was all she knew. Genie was a nickname given to a feral 13-year-old girl who had been a victim of being severely abused and neglected by her parents, in her own house in Arcadia, California. Prior to Genie being discovered in 1970 by Los Angeles child welfare authorities, much of her life consisted of being locked alone in her room strapped to a potty chair or a crib resulting in her being immobile (Reynolds & Fletcher-Janzen, 2004). While Genie was locked away in her room she was never exposed to speech and would get beat for any noises she would make. Her father, Clark Wiley only interacted with her through barking and growling at her; as a result of this extreme isolation Genie missed the critical period to acquire language (Curtiss et al., 1974; Reynolds & Fletcher-Janzen, 2004). Immediately after Genie had been found she became a new subject for researchers to study and examine the theories of critical periods on humans to learn and understand language. Unfortunately, soon after Genie turned 18, her mother forbid any of the scientists from anymore testing and observations, which ultimately decreased any and all process Genie had made towards learning and understanding language.
Nearly every member of the human race learns a language or more to the degree of proficiency only in the first few years of life. How children achieve this astonishing skill in such little time has sparked controversial debates among linguists, psychologists, and scientists throughout centuries. Some believe that language is an innate ability possessed by all human beings due to the remarkable function of the brain, while others maintain that language is learned from childhood experience. However, many are beginning to realize that nature and nurture go hand-in-hand when explaining how children develop their language(s). Despite the claims that language is either pre-learned or environmentally learned alone, the combination of both genes and experience better explains the aspects of first language acquisition.
Child development language is a process by which children come to communicate and understand language during early childhood. This usually occurs from birth up to the age of five. The rate of development is usually fast during this period. However, the pace and age of language development vary greatly among children. Thus, the language development of a child is usually compared with norms rather than with other individual children. It is scientifically proven that development of girls language is usually at a faster rate than that of boys. (Berk, 2010) In other terms language development is also a crucial factor that reflects the growth and maturation of the brain. However, this development usually retards after the age of five making it very difficult for most children to continue learning language. There are two major types of language development in children. These include referential and expressive language development styles. In referential language development, children often first speak single words and then join the words together, first into –word sentences and then into th...
"Case 4 Genie, The Wild Child Research or Exploitation?" Case 4 Genie, The Wild Child Research or Exploitation? Georgetown University, n.d. Web. 15 Sep. 2013. .
The development of the brain of a bilingual individual is better than a monolingual individual. Few years ago, researchers from the University of Washington (as cited in Klass, 2011, para 4.) found that the brains of bilingual infants (from families where two languages were spoken) are able to discriminate the different of the phonetic sound of the languages they usually heard when they grew up than monolingual infants in where their brains were adapted to only identify their mother tongue only. Dr. Patricia Kuhl, one of the members of this research team thus believe that bilingual education can shape infants’ brains and keep them ready for future challenges. Concurrently, a renowned psychologist, Dr. Ellen...
To continue with the key features, language is known to be special because of how children are able to learn in ways that are different from learning other things. (Willingham, 2007). Strong evidence shows how prepared the human brain is to learn language with very little stimulation. The results that show this point of view to be true is known to be the worldwide consistency of language learning.
Wilder Penfield and Lamar Roberts first introduced the idea that there is a “critical period” for learning language in 1959. This critical period is a biologically determined period referring to a period of time when learning/acquiring a language is relatively easy and typically meets with a high degree of success. German linguist Eric Lenneberg further highlights Roberts and Penfield’s findings and postulated the Critical Period Hypothesis in 1967. According to the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), certain biological events related to language development can only happen in the critical period. During this time, the brain possesses a degree of flexibility (ability and ease of learning a language) and becomes lateralized (assignment of language functions becomes concrete – either in the left or right hemisphere) (Marinova-Todd, S; Marshall, D & Snow, C. 2000 9-10). This critical period lasts from childhood through the onset of puberty (usually at around 12 years of age). Once this period is over, it is more difficult to learn a language because language functions in the brain have become concrete. This hypothesis can be seen with the case of Genie, a woman who was isolated from human interaction and language up to the age of 13. By the time she was rescued, she was well after the critical period for language acquisition, and as such, she did not have a full command of the English language. Had she been rescued before the age of 13, she may have had more linguistic capability. However, this accounts for firs...
If Genie’s impairment was congenital or caused by nature, then it would provide a great amount of evidence to the nature prospective but if her impairment was developed or caused by her environment then it would provide a great amount of evidence for the nurture argument.
A linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Chomsky, declared that we have the ability to learn language not only because somebody taught us, but also because we are born with the principles of language in our genes. Chomsky also said “We have language because of nature, not just nurture” (Everywhere Psychology, 2012). Chomsky was one of the people that believed Genie still had a chance to learn language since everybody is born with the ability to learn. A neuropsychologist named Eric Lenneberg, agreed with Chomsky about humans being born with the ability to learn a language as nature, but believed there is a deadline for learning language. Lenneberg believed that if a first language isn 't learned by puberty it could be too late. What Lenneberg proposed is called the "critical period hypothesis," (Everywhere Psychology,