Bilingual children use as many words as monolingual children to tell a story and demonstrate high levels of cognitive flexibility, new research from scientists at the University of Alberta shows.
“We found that the number of words bilingual children use in their stories is highly correlated with their cognitive flexibility – the ability to switch between different concepts when thinking,” said Elena Nicoladis, lead author and professor at the Institute of Psychology of the Faculty of Natural Sciences. “This suggests that children who grow up bilingual are just as good at storytelling.”
Vocabulary is a strong predictor of school performance, as is storytelling. “These results suggest thatParents of bilingual childrennot having to worry about long-term school performance,” said Nicoladis. “In a storytelling context, bilingual children can use this flexibility to convey stories in creative ways.”
The study examined a group of bilingual French-English children who were taught two languages since birth rather than learning a second language later in life. The results show that these children used as many words to tell a story in English as monolingual children. Participants used as many words in French as in English when telling a story.
Previous research has shown that children who grow up bilingual score lower on traditional vocabulary tests than monolingual children. This means that our understanding of multiple languages and cognition in children is changing.
“Past research is not surprising,” Nicoladis added. “Learning a word depends on how much time you spend in each language. For bilingual children, time is divided between languages. Therefore, it is not surprising that they have less vocabulary in each of their languages. However, this study shows that children who grow up speaking two languages can also perform very well in storytelling compared to monolingual children. “
