Early stimulation of bilingualism

Language is a mechanism inherent in the human being. The ability of language has allowed us to convey knowledge and evolve as a species. According to Chomsky, One of the most recognized linguists today, who has elaborated a theory of language that has represented a revolution in this area of ​​study, the human being has the innate ability to acquire language.

Thus, Chomsky affirms that children are born with the ability to receive external stimuli and process them to configure their mind to recognize those sounds that, combined, will form words and phrases that will allow them, over the years, to express ideas and feelings easily.

The baby's brain and language acquisition

Along the same lines, Patricia Kuhl, a researcher at the early acquisition of language and brain development, has carried out a study in which it shows that children, since they are babies, filter those sounds that are most familiar to them and that they will need to know to develop what their mother tongue will be.

These sounds will be different depending on the language that speaks their surroundings. A Japanese child will keep in his record the sounds of the Japanese language, while an American child will record those English sounds. This occurs because children are exposed to these sounds from the moment they are born.

To demonstrate this, Kuhl performs an experiment with two one -year -old babies, one that has been raised in an English -speaking environment and another that has been raised in a Japanese speaking environment, to see what his brain activity is before the different sounds. When analyzing the results, it is observed that the Japanese baby does not react to English and English sounds does not react to Japanese.

But the curious fact is that, up to six months, the recognition of languages ​​in both children was the same and reacted to the sounds in the same way. It is between six and eight months when the sound recognition curve begins to bow to one or another language.

Kuhl's conclusion is that the acquisition of language modifies certain areas of the brain that facilitate that children have more capacity to understand sounds as they grow. If children are stimulated in two languages, their ability to recognize sounds will be greater than that of those children who are only stimulated in a.

Bilingual children and their ease with languages

This study also explains that The acquisition of language in children It is dizzying until the age of seven, at which time the speed at which they learn begins to drop. The fact that children are exposed to more than one language from the moment they are born contributes to more ease in the future to acquire new languages.

It is because of this sound recognition process that babies store a greater amount of recognizable sounds when exposed to a bilingual environment. Thus, as they grow, the two languages ​​learn much more easily, because they have registered the phonemes that they will need to pronounce when they want to issue a message in one or another language.

In this context, those parents who can facilitate their children a bilingual environment will be helping them to develop in more than one language with ease and to learn new languages ​​in less time.

By María José Madarnás, Easy Maternity Editor.