Brain and language development in monolingual and bilingual infants

Host: Dr Shirley-Ann Rueschemeyer

The effects of experience on brain and language development is a central issue in developmental cognitive neuroscience.  Studies of monolingual infants as they develop and attain new language milestones, provide the opportunity to link changes in proficiency with concomitant changes in the organization of brain function.  Studies of bilingual infants, learning two native languages simultaneously, provide a unique opportunity to study the effects of relative proficiency in the same developing brain. 

The talk will focus on different aspects of language development including phonology, working memory, word recognition and meaning in monolingual and bilingual infants and adults. The approach taken is to examine the effects of experience on brain organization by studying:

1) children who are the same age but differ in vocabulary size,

2) children who have similar vocabulary sizes but who differ in chronological age (early and late talkers),

3) children learning two languages at the same time who may have different vocabulary sizes for each language (language dominance),  and

4) investigating the effects of domain general and language specific processes on vocabulary development.

The findings stress the need to consider vocabulary development as a dynamic and interactive process.