Is Bilingualism a Superpower? | Otherwords

There was a time when psychologists thought growing up bilingual was harmful to brain development, but recent studies into bilingual children have turned that idea on its head! Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and fınds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fıelds of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human. sources: Janet Werker (2012). Perceptual foundations of bilingual acquisition in infancy Nuria Sebastian-Galles and Chiara Santolin (2020) Bilingual Acquisition: The Early Steps Erika Hoff (2017) Bilingual Development in Children of Immigrant Families Ellen Bialystok and Fergus I. M. Craik (2010) Cognitive and Linguistic Processing in the Bilingual Mind Jonathan A. Berken, Vincent L. Graccob, Denise Kleina (2016) Early bilingualism, language attainment, and brain development Maria M. Arredondo, Xiao-Su Hu, Teresa Satterfield, and Ioulia Kovelman (2016) Bilingualism alters children’s frontal lobe functioning for attentional control Maria M. Arredondo, Richard N. Aslin, Janet F. Werker (2020) Bilingualism alters infants’ cortical organization for attentional orienting mechanisms Maria M. Arredondo, Richard N. Aslin, Minyu Zhang, Janet F. Werker (2020) Attentional orienting abilities in bilinguals: Evidence from a large infant sample Drew Weatherhead, Maria M. Arredondo, Loreto Nácar Garcia, and Janet F. Werker (2020) The Role of Audiovisual Speech in Fast-Mapping and Novel Word Retention in Monolingual and Bilingual 24-Month-Olds Host: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D. Creator/Director: Andrew Matthews & Katie Graham Writer: Andrew Matthews Producer: Katie Graham Editor/Animation: Andrew Matthews Executive Producer: Amanda Fox Fact Checker: Yvonne McGreevy Special thanks to: Maria M. Arredondo, Ph.D. Lena Widen Dunsmoor Beth Widen Daniella Varela Teddy Matthews The Child’s Lab at the University of Texas Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing Associate Director of Programming for PBS: Niki Walker Stock Images from Shutterstock Music from APM Music Otherwords is produced by Spotzen for PBS. © 2022 PBS. All rights reserved.