skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Children Who Speak Two Languages at an Advantage

play audio
Play

Friday, February 19, 2016   

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A new study of bilingual and monolingual toddlers could be reason for parents to share this story in two languages. Research in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology has shown that children learning two languages perform better at certain problem-solving tasks than do their monolingual peers.

Cristina Crivello, a Ph.D. student at Concordia University in Montreal who led the study, said 1 1/2-year-old bilingual children have abilities that are beneficial for people at any age.

"It's these specific cognitive abilities, like selective attention and cognitive flexibility, where they have to focus on relevant information and ignore distracting information," she said.

Although there is no consensus yet on exactly how learning other languages improves the brain, Crivello suggested that switching between languages mirrors the process of switching between tasks.

Speaking another language also can improve children's chances of getting a job later in life, both at home and abroad. Bridget Yaden, a Pacific Northwest Council for Languages board member whose third-grader is enrolled in a dual-immersion language program, said her son will be able to bring another set of skills to potential employers. Those employers could be in any number of countries around the world.

"Just the general ability to learn a second language or a third language, he could really go anywhere and be open to the cultural practices and really kind of make his way," she said.

Young children immersed in other languages can more easily pick them up because their brains are more receptive to acquiring language. Yaden, a professor of Hispanic studies at Pacific Lutheran University who also teaches foreign languages, said she can see how fast her son is progressing compared with her college students.

"He's definitely leaps and bounds beyond where my college students, who may have had the same amount of time with the language, are," she said. "He's definitely progressed much more quickly."

Yaden, who is fluent in Spanish, added that she didn't study a foreign language until high school.

The study is online at sciencedirect.com.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021