Can learning a foreign language prevent dementia?

Dementia, InWe often hear that learning a foreign language can prevent or at least delay the onset of dementia. So let's see what's true about this statement, according to Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz, co-authors of the book “Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language” and the newly published book “Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging” .

First, dementia refers to the loss of cognitive abilities and we identify over one hundred types of different diseases that occurr as disorders of brain functions such as thinking, orientation, memory and language. Alzheimer's disease is the most well-known and most common form of dementia. Currently, we are not familiar with the causes of this disease and, as a result, there are no proven measures that people can take to prevent it.

However, some experts think that learning a foreign language could help delay the onset of dementia.

 

Some misconceptions

According to Roberts and Kreuz, however, there are some misconceptions about dementia and brain aging. For one thing, dementia is not inevitable in the normal aging process: most elderly people do not develop Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia.

Furthermore, the idea that dementia can be prevented is based on the comparison made between the brain and any muscle. That's why we think that to stay mentally fit, you have to do a constant training.

In addition to what Roberts and Kreuz say in their book, according to another recent study from the University of Montreal, people who speak two languages train specific brain regions and can therefore increase cortical thickness and gray matter density.

However, since every case of dementia is different, being educated, bilingual or being an avid reader can't always make a difference.

 

Bilingualism in the world

Bilingualism, is the ability of an individual to use two different languages alternately and without difficulty, and it most commonly occurs when children are exposed to two languages, either at home (the mother speaks Spanish, the father speaks French) or more formally in primary school.

In addition, bilingualism and multilingualism are more common than you might think: it has been estimated that there are fewer monolingual people in the world than bilingual and multilingual people. Although in many countries most of the inhabitants share only one language (for example, in Italy and Germany), other countries have several official languages (such as Belgium and Canada).

For example, as Roberts and Kreuz write in their book, Switzerland has about the same population as New York City (about eight million people), and yet it has four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. In addition, throughout large parts of Africa, Arabic, Swahili, French, and English are often known and used by individuals who speak a different, indigenous language in their home than they do in the marketplace.

Thus, bilingualism and multilingualism are widespread all over the world.

 

Bilingualism and cognitive abilities

And with regard to cognitive abilities, the research on those who possess more than one language paints an encouraging picture.

For one thing, bilinguals outperform monolinguals on tests of selective attention and multitasking.

As Roberts and Kreuz report, selective attention can be measured with the Stroop Test, in which individuals look at a list of color names written in different colors. The task is to name the colors in which the words are printed, instead of saying the word itself. Because we read automatically, it can be difficult to ignore the word "blue" and say aloud that it is printed in green.

In addition, bilingual people are also better at multitasking: one possible explanation is that speakers of two languages are continually inhibiting one of their languages, and this process of inhibition confers general cognitive benefits to other activities.

However, bilingual individuals have been shown to have smaller vocabularies and to take longer in retrieving words from memory when compared to monolinguals. Anyway, in the long run, the cognitive and linguistic advantages of being bilingual far outweigh these two issues.

So, if the benefits of being bilingual spill over to other aspects of cognition, then we would expect to see a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in bilinguals than in monolinguals, or at least a later onset of Alzheimer’s for bilinguals. In fact, as Roberts and Kreuz also write, there is evidence to support this claim.

 

Dementia and bilingualism: an influential study...

A well-known study published in 2007 by Ellen Byalistok and her colleagues at a memory clinic in Toronto found that in monolingual patients the average age of the onset of dementia was 71 years. Bilingual patients, on the other hand, showed signs of dementia from an average age of 75 years old. In such a study, a four-year difference is very significant and could not be explained by other systematic differences between the two groups. For example, monolingual patients reported, on average, a year and a half more schooling than bilingual patients, so obviously the effect was not due to formal education. As Ellen Byalistok also argues in an interview with The New York Times, to achieve this kind of result, that is, a 4-year difference in the age of onset of dementia, bilingual people must always use both languages: you will not get the bilingual benefit from occasional use.

 

... and some hypothesis

Moreover, as already mentioned, since we are not yet familiar with the causes of dementia there are no real precautions that people can take to prevent it. In newspapers, however, we read the most wide variety of remedies: exercise, do the crosswords, eat fish, not smoking and other studies of successful aging suggest that being connected to one’s community and having plenty of social interaction is also important in forestalling the onset of dementia.

However, the results are far less clear than the popular media might lead you to believe.: older individuals who lead active social lives are, almost by definition, healthier than their counterparts who rarely leave their homes or interact with others. So, does being socially active prevent the onset of dementia? Or are people who do not have dementia more likely to be socially active?

According to an article published in August this year in The Sun, an English tabloid, “Playing bingo or going to the pub with pals can help protect against dementia”. Or even, according to The Sun, “Dementia patients would benefit from an hour of social ­interaction a week, study claims”.

 

Positive results from bilingualism

In conclusion, as Roberts and Kreuz argue, however encouraging these types of studies are, they have not yet established exactly how or why there are differences between bilinguals and monolinguals: more research is certainly needed to determine the reasons why the onset of dementia in bilingual people sometimes occurs later.

Therefore, even if studying a foreign language is not a magical cure-all, it certainly has benefits: multilingualism has undoubtedly proven to have many social, psychological and lifestyle advantages.

 

For more information, you can read an excerpt from the book “Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language” by Richard Roberts (Foreign Service Officer currently serving as the Public Affairs Officer at the US Consulate General in Okinawa, Japan) and Roger Kreuz (Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the University of Memphis).

 

“Becoming Fluent: How Cognitive Science Can Help Adults Learn a Foreign Language” by Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz (ISBN: 9780262529808) you can find it here.

 

“Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging” by Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz (ISBN: 9780262042598) you can find it here.

 

The study by Ellen Bialystok, Fergus I.M.Craik, Morris Freedman “Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia” can be found here.

 

The New York Times interview with Ellen Bialystok can be found here.

 


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Author: Margherita Pancaldi

Machine translation: SDL Machine Translation (previously SDL BeGlobal)

Post-editing: Margherita Pancaldi

Source language: italiano (it)


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