Before reading the article I was not aware of the fact that having the ability to speak more than one language improves the cognitive abilities as well as has long-term benefits. The writer talks about how the bilinguals are better at solving some types of mental puzzles than monolinguals. According to a study done in 2004, bilibgual children were faster at sorting a set of things according to two different criteria than monolingual children. Several justifications have been suggested for the observed behavior. Some say that bilinguals have an improved ability to ignore distractions while others think that it is due to their increased ability to monitor the environment. Most of the evidence from studies presented were performed on children or infants. As a result, it made me wonder whether the same effects will be observed in those who learned a second language later in their lives. However, one thing that has been observed in bilingual adults is that they have a greater resistance to dementia.
Some of the other questions that remained unanswered by the article are that how proficient in the language does one have to be to considered bilingual and are the same effects observed in polyglots.
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