Babies brains in bilingual and monolingual families.

This a short video which looks into how bilingual and monolingual baby brains differ in response to language.

In this case the study centres on English / Spanish speaking families and the results you will find are very interesting.

Reporting their findings in the journal Developmental Science, the scientists discovered that the babies from bilingual families exhibited strong brain responses to both the Spanish and English sounds, indicating that they were able to recognise and process both types as “phonetic sounds” rather than general noises, or “acoustic sounds.” Babies from English-speaking families, however, only responded to English sounds, suggesting that the Spanish sounds were not phonetically processed.

This outcome indicates that, even before babies start talking, they are able to recognise linguistic sounds. However, a much more important finding was that the neurological responses of bilingual babies occurred in certain brain regions responsible for executive function, such as the prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex. In contrast, the brain responses of monolingual babies did not extend into these regions.

Watch the video and see for yourself !!!