Beyond language: Childhood bilingualism enhances high-level cognitive functions

Children growing up in a bilingual environment have to build up two language systems from the linguistic input. They will use the two languages alternately as a function of their interlocutor in their everyday interaction. At a young age, a bilingual child may be faced with somewhat different requirements than a monolingual one. This chapter will discuss the possible changes that bilingualism might induce in the cognitive system in this early phase of development. Adult neuroimaging evidence suggests that bilingualism can result in differential functional specialization of the two languages depending on the age of acquisition, and moreover, can even lead to reorganization at neuronal level. Here we present behavioral studies indicating that bilingual children outperform their monolingual peers on tasks that require high levels of cognitive control, such as executive function and false-belief tasks. The extensive experience bilingual children gain in inhibiting one language while switching to the other may lead to an enhancement of their domain-general executive control abilities that are involved in different aspects of cognitive functioning.