NIH Radio
Bilingual kids may have a cognitive advantage – 2
Narrator: This is NIH Health Matters. I’m Joe Balintfy. In a NIH study, bilingual kids –children who speak two languages – did much better on a cognitive test compared to children who only speak English. Dr. Peggy McCardle at the NIH explains that researchers found bilingual children had better ability to flexibly switch tasks.
McCardle: For example if you give them a rule and say classify all of these pictures based on a certain characteristic or certain rule and then you change the rule how quickly can they pick up on that and change with you. And the bilingual children were really better able to do that.
Narrator: For more on bilinguaglism, visit www.nichd.nih.gov. Health Matters is produced by the NIH, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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