Second language performances in elderly bilinguals and individuals with dementia: The role of L2 immersion

Abstract

With the population aging and an increase in the number of senior immigrant citizens in modern societies, public health systems will be increasingly burdened with the need to deal with the care and treatment of bi-or multilingual individuals with cognitive decline and dementia. This raises complex questions such as which language is better preserved in these elderly individuals, particularly for those facing dementias. The main aim of the present investigation was to study in two groups of immigrant populations whether the first language (L1) or the second language (L2) are better preserved. For this purpose, we assessed by means of cognitive and neurolinguistics testing 20 late-bilingual individuals with neurodegenerative dementia of the Alzheimer and mixed type, and compared their results to a matched control group consisting of 19 subjects. Our results suggest that L1 is not better preserved in individuals with dementia. We report a parallel decline of second language across groups, regardless of the presence of dementia, as well as a significant correlation between language immersion and L2 relative performances (r ¼ 0.379, p ¼ 0.03). Moreover our data suggest that individual with dementia may have a relative sparing of syntactic L2 comprehension. These results suggest that these elderly individuals who have lived in a host country for many years, such as the subjects here investigated, may preserve similarly their L2 as much as their L1, irrespectively of the presence or absence of neurodegenerative disease, and even preserve some features of L2 processes in dementia. These results emphasize the role of immersion in language preservation.

Predictors of Successful Learning in Multilingual Older Adults Acquiring a Majority Language

“…In addition to the benefits of language transfer identified in the attainment and maintenance of English, exposure to English emerged as a predictor of English proficiency across our overall sample, consistent with previous findings in younger adults 2 (e.g., Marian et al, 2007;Linck et al, 2009) and older adults (Barresi et al, 1998;Nanchen et al, 2017). It is possible that, in learners who cannot engage efficient cognitive control skills to ameliorate interference from other languages, establishment of languagespecific resonance through continued immersion is especially critical in the language acquisition process.…”

“…For example, Barresi et al (1998) found in a longitudinal study that older individuals who reported living in a household with other adults showed better naming performance while those who reported high-passive language exposure through television showed lower performance. In younger bilingual adults and language learners, language exposure has similarly emerged as an important predictor of abilities (e.g., Marian et al, 2007;Linck et al, 2009) and may play an important role in the maintenance of L2 in older adults (e.g., Nanchen et al, 2017). It has been suggested that continued use of a language provides continued activation and strengthens its representations, creating language-specific resonance that boosts the network underlying the novel language and reduces interference from other languages (MacWhinney, 2012).…”

Health outcomes associated with participating in community care centres for older people in Taiwan

“…Language learning was also found to be related to improvement of self‐rated health and memory. Previous studies have found that language learning is related to cognitive function (Antoniou, & Wright, ), and a second language preservation ability was related to cognitive function (Nanchen et al, ).…”

Bilingualism in a Case of the Non-fluent/agrammatic Variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia

“…In fact, Abutalebi et al (2015) found that differences between L1 and L2 suggesting an age of L2 acquisition effect are not present in elderly individuals. Nanchen et al (2017) examining preservation of L1 and L2 in an immigrant population of late bilingual speakers with dementia, found that languages were equally preserved. They concluded that for elderly individuals, exposure and immersion are the main determinants of language preservation.…”

“…The available evidence is mixed. Some studies report parallel deterioration (Salvatierra et al, 2007;Costa et al, 2012;Manchon et al, 2015;Nanchen et al, 2017), while others report differential deterioration of the two languages (Mendez et al, 1999;Gollan et al, 2010). In the study by Gollan et al (2010), bilingual persons with AD exhibited greater decline in the dominant than the nondominant language.…”