Early bilingualism, language attainment, and brain development

Berken, Jonathan A.; Gracco, Vincent L.; Klein, Denise

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.031

Cited by 59 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…This is in line with Klein et al (), who also found that later AoA relates to thicker left SPL, although in their study this was a continuous (not categorical) relationship. The findings of the left SPL, IPL, and STG fit with the argument that late bilinguals in particular may achieve L2 resonance via metacognitive processes that rely on nonlanguage areas (e.g., recoding, rehearsal, and imagery) in order to defend against L1 entrenchment (Berken et al, ; Hernandez, Claussenius‐Kalman, Ronderos, & Vaughn, ; Hernandez, Li, & MacWhinney, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

“…For instance, native-like accent production, phonemic perception, and implicit knowledge of syntax are thought to have an early sensitive period (i.e., before age 7; Johnson & Newport, 1989;Tokowicz & MacWhinney, 2005) due to higher plasticity of certain brain structures (e.g., motor/speech pathways) early in development (Hernandez & Li, 2007). Therefore, it is likely that neuroplasticity manifests differently in relation to age of L2 acquisition (Berken, Gracco, & Klein, 2017), but its exact manifestation differs between studies. Some studies (e.g., Grogan et al, 2012) suggest that the plasticity of certain structures facilitates high language proficiency in bilinguals who learned the L2 early in development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age of acquisition impacts the brain differently depending on neuroanatomical metric

Claussenius-Kalman

Vaughn

Archila‐Suerte

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

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Although researchers generally agree that a certain set of brain areas underlie bilingual language processing, there is discrepancy regarding what effect timing of language acquisition has on these regions. We aimed to investigate the neuroanatomical correlates of age of acquisition (AoA), which has been examined previously, but with inconsistent results, likely influenced by methodological differences across studies. We analyzed gray matter density, volume, and thickness using whole-brain linear models in 334 bilinguals and monolinguals. Neuroanatomical correlates of AoA differed depending on gray matter metric. Relative to early bilinguals, late bilinguals had thicker cortex in language processing and cognitive control regions, and greater density in multiple frontal areas and the right middle temporal and supramarginal gyri. Early bilinguals had greater volume than late bilinguals in the left middle temporal gyrus. Overall, volume was the least sensitive to AoA-related differences. Multiple regions not classically implicated in duallanguage processing were also found, which highlights the important role of whole-brain analyses in neuroscience. This is the first study to investigate AoA and gray matter thickness, volume, and density all in the same sample. We conclude that cognitive models of bilingualism should consider the roles of development and neuroanatomical metric in driving our understanding of bilingual and monolingual language organization. K E Y W O R D S age of acquisition, bilingualism, gray matter, language development, magnetic resonance imaging, neuroanatomy, replication crisis

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age of acquisition impacts the brain differently depending on neuroanatomical metric

Claussenius-Kalman

Vaughn

Archila‐Suerte

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For example, bilingual infants show different brain responses to native and non-native speech sounds than monolingual infants Garcia-Sierra et al, 2011), and bilingual children recruit different brain areas during sentence processing (Jasinska & Petitto, 2013). Adult work shows that the age of acquisition of a second language affects the brain's language networks (Berken, Gracco, & Klein, 2017), and functional connectivity (Kousaie, Chai, Sander, & Klein, 2017). Moreover, bilingualism also affects the structure of both grey (Andrea et al, 2004;Ressel et al, 2012) and white matter (Kuhl et al, 2016) in adults.…”

Section: Brain Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Case for Measuring and Reporting Bilingualism in Developmental Research

Byers‐Heinlein

Esposito

Winsler

et al. 2019

Collabra: Psychology

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Many children around the world grow up bilingual, learning and using two or more languages in everyday life. Currently, however, children's language backgrounds are not always reported in developmental studies. There is mounting evidence that bilingualism interacts with a wide array of processes including language, cognitive, perceptual, brain, and social development, as well as educational outcomes. As such, bilingualism may be a hidden moderator that obscures developmental patterns, and limits the replicability of developmental research and the efficacy of psychological and educational interventions. Here, we argue that bilingualism and language experience in general should be routinely documented in all studies of infant and child development regardless of the research questions pursued, and provide suggestions for measuring and reporting children's language exposure, proficiency, and use.

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“…Brain imaging studies on bilingualism have largely revealed overlap between the brain functional language networks that are recruited during language processing in the first and second languages of bilinguals, with involvement of more heterogeneous regions in the L2 in less proficient bilinguals (Sebastian et al 2011) and in late L2 learners (Berken et al 2017;Indefrey 2006), and with additional involvement of brain regions involved in language and executive control in these latter populations. With respect to language control, these studies have tended to support the view that language control and cognitive control processes depend upon similar networks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond bilingualism: multilingual experience correlates with caudate volume

2018

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The multilingual brain implements mechanisms that serve to select the appropriate language as a function of the communicative environment. Engaging these mechanisms on a regular basis appears to have consequences for brain structure and function. Studies have implicated the caudate nuclei as important nodes in polyglot language control processes, and have also shown structural differences in the caudate nuclei in bilingual compared to monolingual populations. However, the majority of published work has focused on the categorical differences between monolingual and bilingual individuals, and little is known about whether these findings extend to multilingual individuals, who have even greater language control demands. In the present paper, we present an analysis of the volume and morphology of the caudate nuclei, putamen, pallidum and thalami in 75 multilingual individuals who speak three or more languages. Volumetric analyses revealed a significant relationship between multilingual experience and right caudate volume, as well as a marginally significant relationship with left caudate volume. Vertex-wise analyses revealed a significant enlargement of dorsal and anterior portions of the left caudate nucleus, known to have connectivity with executive brain regions, as a function of multilingual expertise. These results suggest that multilingual expertise might exercise a continuous impact on brain structure, and that as additional languages beyond a second are acquired, the additional demands for linguistic and cognitive control result in modifications to brain structures associated with language management processes.

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Early bilingualism, language attainment, and brain development

Cited by 59 publications

References 102 publications

Age of acquisition impacts the brain differently depending on neuroanatomical metric

Age of acquisition impacts the brain differently depending on neuroanatomical metric

The Case for Measuring and Reporting Bilingualism in Developmental Research

Beyond bilingualism: multilingual experience correlates with caudate volume

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