Bilinguals Have Faster, More Adaptive Brains When They Get Older, Study Finds from ABC News — More proof that the benefits of being bilingual last a lifetime. You can also read Ana’s take on this study on her Babble post.

Babies Seem to Pick Up Language in Utero from The New York Times — We knew babies learn to recognize their mother’s voice while in the womb. This study says they also learn to recognize and learn bits of their native language before they’re even born.

Humor in Bilingual Couples by Prof. François Grosjean from Psychology Today — If English is your second language, did you have a hard time finding humor in your partner’s jokes in English? I know some couples who have hilarious stories to tell related to humor when two languages are involved.

My Best Tips for Raising Bilingual Kids from Bilingual Monkeys — 30 tips you will absolutely love! I particularly like the one related to reading and writing.

One such research was published this week on The Journal of Neuroscience that focused on the lasting benefits of raising bilingual kids by focusing on older adults. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, concluded that bilingual adults’ brains are much sharper and quicker when responding to multiple stimuli. I want to think this is why I’m a master multi-tasker myself!

CLICK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE …

We’re totally loving this Bilingualism Across the U.S. infographic created by BestCollegesOnline.com! The graphic speaks for itself and we’re sure many of you are already aware of the info included, but we think it’s a great way to share with others why we consider bilingualism such an amazing benefit!

In the lasts months I´ve been buried in all types of research and studies regarding bilinguals because of all the material I  needed for the book we´re writing. Not that I need to be any more convinced about raising my daughter bilingually, it´s just fascinating to read about studies that basically take pictures of the brain, called neuroimaging, to clearly map out how the brains of bilinguals are different from monolinguals. They say a picture tells a thousand words, and these do!

One such study was conducted last year at the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. We told you all about it and the findings in this post- Bilingual Babies: The Sooner, The Better.

In a nutshell, their conclusions suggest that the brain of a baby who has heard more than one language since birth (or even in-utero) remains more receptive to learning more languages for a longer period of time than a monolingual brain. That´s why we always say that the sooner you learn a second language, the easier it will be for you to learn more down the road.

What I also found fascinating about this particular study is that while conducting the Bilingual Baby Project, researchers also found and pinpointed three things that are very important for a baby´s overall bilingual comprehension skills; all of which are up to the parents to be aware of and execute.

3 Important Factors to Consider When Raising a Bilingual Child

1. The amount of exposure to each language. Babies and children need to hear the minority language being spoken to them 50-60% percent of their waking hours. It´s important that this exposure comes from human interaction, and not as much from media usage. Media is an important complement, but not something to rely on. Talk to your baby all the time from the day he/she is born. Talk, read, sing-out-loud, immerse him in an all-Spanish environment which could be a playgroup where all the moms are speaking Spanish.

2.The strategies parents use to raise a bilingual child. The two most used and most effective strategies to raise bilingual kids are One Parent One Language (OPOL) and Minority Language at Home (mL@H.) OPOL is when one of the parents speaks one language and the other parent another, all the time. For OPOL to be effective, the commitment from the parents has to be very clear and they must stick to their assigned language all the time. For a deeper insight into the OPOL method, check out these posts.

The mL@H method is the one Roxana and I use because we speak only Spanish at home with our husbands, all the time. English is pretty much not allowed among the three of us in my house. We´ve purposely created a home environment where the minority language can thrive and so my girl can associate Spanish to the comfort of family and home.

In short, what´s really essential is to have a strategy and commit to it. Flexibility is important because you have to adapt with your child´s needs and changing family conditions, but try to be as committed as possible because children do thrive on routine and consistency.

3. The parents’ desires to raise bilingual children. I love this one! Rarely do scientific linguistic research touch upon desire, at least to my knowledge, and I certainly believe it´s one of the most important factors. Both you and your spouse (if there is one) need to truly want and desire for this child to be bilingual. The reasons are usually personal and have to do with nostalgia, family ties, and a cultural bond, and these are the best! It´s that burning desire and want which will constantly drive you to have a method and stick to it; it will also motivate you to find a playgroup, the right dual immersion school, to travel, etc. I will go on a limb and say that desire is the driving force behind a bilingual child. Your desire comes first and that will feed into her´s.

What do you think? What is the one factor that has been the most effective in your bilingual journey, and/or the one you wished you had more of?

{Photo by efleming }

Bilingual Baby Project–a study presented by researchers of the University of Washington and the University of Texas at San Antonio–concluded that the earlier we start exposing babies to a second language, the more flexible their bilingual brains will be and the more they can identify and separate the sounds of the different languages they are exposed to.

The key, researchers say, is that during their first year of life, babies should be exposed through rich interactions to the two languages at home so their brains can absorb all the sounds and retain them by the time this first window starts to close once they turn one year old.  In fact, “the researchers also show that the relative amount of each language — English and Spanish — babies were exposed to affected their vocabulary as toddlers.”

This study is significant because it is the first one to measure brain activity in the first year of age and relate it directly to language learning in babies exposed to both English and Spanish at home.

Knowing this, we give you three strategies parents raising bilingual babies can use as soon as their child is born {or even in the womb!}:

1.  Habla, habla, habla! Researchers also found that exposure to the language does matter. Meaning, the more a baby hears the sounds of a particular language, the larger his vocabulary in it will be.  Talk to your baby all the time in Spanish, or your second language, even if you think she has no idea what you are saying; she’s absorbing every little sound and it will be the building blocks to her own speech acquisition.  Reading and singing in Spanish will also enrich their bilingual environment and get them used to hearing books and songs in Spanish.

You can also organize playdates with other Spanish-speaking amigas with babies so that your kids listen to the chatter in Spanish while you’re all entertained.

2. Have a plan, be consistent and stick to it.  The personal strategies parents adopt to raise their child bilingually are fundamental to creating a rich and consistent environment to learn multiple languages. As a couple, decide early on which of the proven methods to raise a bilingual child you will use in your home: Minority Language at Home{ml@h}, One Parent, One Language {OPOL}, or Time and Place.  Once you decide, have a game plan and stick to it to create familiarity and consistency in the baby’s environment. For example, if the dad will be the Spanish speaker, he will always be the Spanish speaker, sin excusas.

3.  Commit to your decision. The study also showed that the parents’ desires to raise bilingual children is of utmost importance.  Committing to the bilingual journey requires a real passion and desire to follow through. Be sure of what your reasons are and let that passion filter through your daily actions to ensure a fun and immersive bilingual home environment for your baby.

The research is clearly on our side, we really have no excuse to not promote bilingualism in our kids as soon as they are born. Just think about it, they have  no idea of the gift you are giving them and of the incredible ways it will manifest as benefits in their lives, and, the best part is they can’t even complain or argue against it yet.

I do need to add that even though this Bilingual Baby Project finds that the first year of age is the best time to start learning a second language, this in no way means it’s our only window of opportunity.  It is the first one and will set a solid base for a flexible brain, but children until the age of seven are clearly well suited, neurolagically speaking, to easily become fluently bi and multilingual.

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