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The benefits of speaking several languages

Promoting bilingualism at home can have many cognitive benefits, which can be particularly useful for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (TEA), indicates a new research of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the University of Miami.

A team of researchers led by Celia Romero, a student graduated in clinical psychology, together with the associated professor Lynn Perry, Professor Michael Alessandri and former university professor Lucina Uddin, explored the role of bilingualism in 112 children, including children and children in development typically with autism, between the ages of 7 to 12 years. In general, they discovered that children who spoke two or more languages ​​often had stronger executive functioning skills. This means that they can control impulses and change between different tasks more easily than children who only spoke a language.

“We discover that multilingualism is associated with improvements in the executive function, which in turn is associated with improvements in the symptoms of autism,” said Perry. “There were indications of this in the literature before, but it was exciting to see how far they were reaching those differences in this research.”

Posted in the magazine Autism researchThe results are significant because executive functioning skills are a key challenge for children in the spectrum, but they are important for all children to prosper in school and later in the workplace. However, the team found that the benefits of speaking more of one language were not limited to children with autism.

The key characteristics of autism include social communication difficulties and restrictive and repetitive behaviors, as well as the difficulty with the skills of the executive function. These are mental processes that help us plan, focus, remember instructions and administer multiple tasks effectively. While the skills of the executive function develop and improve throughout the useful life, people with autism often fight with executive functioning, which affect their ability to manage daily tasks and adapt to new situations.

The study also analyzed the impact of multilingualism on the central symptoms of autism, including perspective, restricted and repetitive behaviors, and social communication.

“We also discover that multilingual children have improved perspective skills or the ability to understand the thoughts or view of another person,” Romero added.

An idea called joint activation from the field of neuroscience can help explain the results. Previous research suggests that the bilingual brain has two constantly active and competing languages. As a result, the daily displacement experience between these languages ​​is associated with greater executive control. This concept is also known as the “bilingual advantage” and is a great debate issue.

“If you have to juggle with two languages, you must suppress one to use the other. That is the idea, that inhibition, or the ability to avoid doing something, it could be reinforced when you know two languages,” he said, “said Uddin, now a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Brain connectivity and cognition laboratory.

Romero realized that he wanted to explore this issue while working in the Uddin Neuroscience Laboratory on the campus that was doing brain image research on children with autism. She noticed that some bilingual families did not talk to their child in their native language because they thought it could be too challenging and harmful to their child to learn more than one language.

“I began to investigate this so that families know that there is no detriment for their child to learn another language, whether or not they have a disorder with neurological development,” he said. “We know this through research, but often it takes time to families, so I hope this study helps address that.”

In his work as executive director of the Center for Autism and Disabilities of the University, Alessandri said that this question occurs to the parents.

“It is wonderful to have a solid investigation that supports our general recommendation so as not to restrict language exposure to children in multilingual homes,” said Alessandri. “This will surely bring a feeling of relief to many of our families who live with loved ones with autism.”

Romero and Perry are now investigating more with preschool children to see if bilingualism also has an impact on children’s pairs, which are crucial for the social and cognitive development of children. And in UCLA, UDDIN is currently conducting a great follow -up study to research more thoroughly the impact of multilingualism on brain and cognitive development in children with autism.

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