Research examined the link between bilingualism and intelligence.
Children who use a second language at home have a higher IQ.
The study looked at 100 Turkish children growing up in the UK, speaking English to their friends and at school.
The results showed that children who spoke Turkish at home had higher IQs than those who only spoke English.
Bilingualism may act as a kind of ‘cognitive reserve’, the scientists think.
Those with more cognitive reserves may be better able to resist Alzheimer’s and similar neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Michael Daller, study co-author, said:
“It is easier to develop concepts at a young age in a first language and then learn a new word for it later in a different language.
Children who have to learn to understand things for the first time in a less familiar language will find it much harder, so it follows that the children in our study who had done this scored lower on the IQ test.
The research suggests parents can help their children develop their intelligence by encouraging them to use their native language at home, as this won’t be supported at school.”
The study was published in the journal Neurology (Craik et al., 2010).
