The more languages a child knows, the easier it may be for them to learn more. Children are sponges when it comes to learning and growing. Child development is a journey, and a big part of this journey is soaking up all the information they can to learn how to interact in this world. Children learn in schools, by watching TV, by reading, and even by just watching adults interact with each other. They are watching every move that their parents and those around them make to see how they should act. Parents will often want to make this process as easy as possible, and children who speak multiple languages may have a slight edge.
According to Study Finds, the more languages a person speaks, the easier it is for their brain to take in more information. This is just one more benefit to a child being bilingual. Adults can understand this because if an adult speaks only one language, they are usually baffled at others’ ability to pick up a new language.
A study was done in Japan that used neurological evidence to show that the more languages a person speaks, the easier it is for them to learn another. A child who grows up in a home speaking two languages will have an easier time picking up a third or fourth language when they are older. The study was explained fully in a press release and can be read here.
Professor Kuniyoshi L. Sakai said that their findings showed that those who are multilingual are “superior” to those who are bilingual. The researchers looked at and measured the brain activity of 21 bilingual people and 28 multilingual people as they tried to decipher words and sentences that were written and spoken in Kazakh. Kazakh is a language that none of the study participants were familiar with.
They heard recordings of people speaking this language, with some visual indicators, and researchers wanted to see how quickly they would pick up the new language. They found that those who knew more than 2 languages were able to pick up Kazakh a lot faster. They needed fewer rounds of instruction to be able to learn the new language as well as choose their answers quicker. This could have incredible benefits for children, and it may be the perfect prompt for mom to get her child in classes to learn more languages. The benefits are turning out to be incredible.
Sources: Study Finds, U-Tokyo