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All bilingual children – regardless of the languages they speak – show cognitive advantages over their English-only peers, although they may experience weakness in areas like vocabulary acquisition, says a new study by 91��ɫ researchers.

The study, published today in the journal Child Development, examined the effects of specific language pairings on children’s verbal and non-verbal development, taking into account language similarities, cultural background and educational experiences.

Researchers compared more than 100 six-year-old monolingual and bilingual children (English monolinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals), measuring their verbal and non-verbal cognitive development. The children were all public school students from the Greater Toronto Area and of similar socio-economic background.

The study reports that bilingual children differ from each other and from monolingual children in how they develop language and cognitive skills through the early school years. Children who grow up speaking two languages generally have slower language acquisition in each language than children raised speaking just one language. However, they have better “metalinguistic” development that gives them a deeper understanding of the structure of language, a skill that’s important for literacy. They also perform better on tests of non-verbal executive control, which measure the ability to focus attention where necessary without being distracted, and to shift attention when required.

“Our research shows that it doesn’t matter what the other language is – all bilingual children have an equal advantage over monolinguals in terms of non-verbal cognitive control,” says study co-author Ellen Bialystok, DistinguishedResearch Professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health.

Study co-author Ellen Bialystok

“People always ask if the languages themselves matter – and now we can definitively say, ‘no.’”

In terms of language acquisition, however, the study shows that some types of bilingualism – particularly where the languages are similar in origin – may have slight advantages over others. For example, Spanish-English bilinguals outperformed Chinese-English bilinguals and monolinguals on a test of English phonological awareness.

“There is really no generalized verbal outcome of bilingualism,” says Bialystok. “In terms of the language consequences of bilingualism, we found it matters very much what the other language is, what language is used in school and likely other factors as well,” she says.

Even though bilingual children may be somewhat slower in learning the vocabulary of each of their languages, Bialystok emphasizes that the benefits of speaking more than one language far outweigh any drawbacks. In previous studies, she and other researchers established that bilingualism postpones symptoms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease.

“The benefits of bilingualism are evident in every stage of life, from early childhood through to one’s senior years. If children are in a position to learn and speak another language, parents should definitely do everything to encourage that,” she says.

The study, “Bilingual Effects on Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Role of Language, Cultural Background and Education”, is co-authored by Raluca Barac, a PhD student in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health. The research is supported by the US National Institutes of Health.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The AGYU invites you to "surge out there" as it joins with Raqs Media Collective: technological poets for an India in transition, to present their newest exhibit  Surjection.

Of the current generation of Indian artists, the from New Delhi (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta) are among the best known and most widely exposed in the west – and certainly the most media conscious. Having started as documentary filmmakers, over the past 20 years they have evolved a sophisticated, and sometimes performative, practice that combines film, media, audio and text, all of which draw upon philosophy and political theory, in installations of an unresolved poetics.

Right: Members of the Raqs Media Collective, from left, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi and Monica Narula

The Raqs Media Collective exhibition, Surjection, opens with a free public reception tonight, from 6 to 9pm at the Art Gallery of 91��ɫ. The artists will be at the reception.

The collective describes their AGYU exhibition this way: “Raqs Media Collective delights in transposing the plenitude of the incalculable onto the fabric of the ordinary. By counting to infinity, sensing animation in stillness and speaking in the language of silence, Raqs will breathe numbers, figures, proverbs and stories into the galleries of the Art Gallery of 91��ɫ.”

In this exhibition of entirely new work, the artists start with traces that are minimal but that contain great amplitude within them, such as the palm print of Raj Konai – the ancestral trace (from 1859) of the entire history of forensic identification – that hovers over the exhibition. Now animated, this image of a counting hand initiates a series of moves that the viewer animates through the exhibition. At the same time, the viewer witnesses other evolutions in video projection where stillness itself slowly is animated. Surjection begins outside, in AGYU Vitrines and occupies both galleries.

The elements of the exhibition are in a surjective relationship to each other. “Surjection” is a mathematical concept devised by the Bourbaki Group, whereby the elements of one set are applied, transposed, or mapped onto those of another set. Surjection continues until Sunday, Dec. 4.  

Surject yourself onto the Performance Bus

It’s an entirely different experience of numbers and letters on the Bingo Dilemma Bus. The game starts tonight at 6pm sharp when the Performance Bus departs the Ontario College of Art & Design University campus at 100 McCaul St.. Riders gather the clues to the game on the way to the Raqs Media Collective exhibition opening at the AGYU. Artist and game host Oliver Husain will be on the bus calling out the game clues. Performance Bus returns downtown at 9pm.

Math too tough for you? Go back to school with AGYU @ Art Toronto

The AGYU tricks or treats fair patrons with one of its specially commissioned installations featuring Toronto novelist Derek McCormack and Toronto artist Ian Phillips. The haunted schoolhouse is the outcome of an  four-year project supported by the AGYU of H.A.M.S. (Holiday Arts Mail-Order School), which is a correspondence course (for the 1936-1937 school year) devoted to the holiday arts. Hallowe’enologists will be on hand to take your questions and offer demonstrations. Alumni are welcome.  

Virtually AGYU

The surjective relations continue online with the  as independent Toronto curator Su-Ying Lee visits the studio of New 91��ɫ-based artist Alexandre Singh, whom she met in Paris this past summer while travelling in Europe. on her travels through Europe.  

Writing from the ash-filled Grimsvötn sky, Toronto artist counts down the rest of her days in Iceland as she writes about contemporary art and generous helpings of never-ending splendour, mind-blowing sunsets, migratory birds, half-shorn sheep, geothermal pools and more. 

For more information, visit the AGYU website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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