A bilingual environment affects infant development, changes personality
June 22, 2009 at 3:37 am | In Daily Life, discoveries, psychology, research | 7 CommentsTags: adolescents, bilingual, bilingual environment, brain, change, children, cognitive, cognitive development, development, evolutive, executive function, experience, household, infant, kids, language, learning, life, mental retardation, mild, mind, pathology, personality, physiological, research, youngsters
Have you ever wondered if there was any difference in human brain development or change in personality when a person has grown up in a bilingual household or environment?
Researchers from Baruch College and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, studied how bilingual people’s personality is unconsciously affected when switching languages, according to an article published by Reuters.
Also, a team of experts from the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste affirms that in order to cope with the two languages they deal with, infants have to develop their executive function sooner to adapt to that particular environment. Thus, cognitive development is boosted in that area.
Is your baby going to be a smarter guy? Cognitively speaking, he won’t be smarter, but he’ll grow to become a much more flexible person. According to research done by Patricia Kuhl, from the University of Washington “bilingual people aren’t cognitively smarter, but they are more cognitively flexible,” [...] “Practice at constant switching improves an aspect of their cognitive abilities. They become more facile at adjusting to new situations and inventing new situations.”
There is an intimate relationship between who we are and how we express ourselves . The way we speak and think determines who we are. Languages are structured in different ways, thus our way of thinking will be different. The good news is that potentially we can be more than one of us without the “stress of having Dissociative Identity Disorder” 
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Psychologist. Currently working as a Program Coordinator in the Devereux Foundation in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
I studied at the University of Buenos Aires. My professional experience includes working in HR for HSBC Bank Argentina and in two mental health facilities performing psychological evaluations.
Management, social media and tech are my other interests and I’m always keeping myself updated with cutting edge information. If this also interests you, follow me to my other blog http://tek-topic.com/
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Comment by Fernando Tarnogol — October 17, 2009 #
This findings made clear somethings that I have experienced with bilinguals in different native environments… How those bilingual behaved… was so different that only DID or MID may explain… they were different persons, and only the environment factor may explain it. They behave different in other culture, in other land, when they express themself in other language… but some of this differences are unacceptable without DID or MID
Comment by Ana — December 10, 2009 #