The Neuroscience of Multilingual Kids: Smarter Brains, Stronger Connections

Multilingual Minds: Built for Brilliance

From a baby’s first babbling speech to a teenager’s thoughtful conversations, speaking more than one language shapes the brain in some extraordinary ways. A multilingual child can understand, use, and respond to more than two languages in daily life.  It rewires their attention system, strengthens memory and even protects their brains as they age.

What are they capable of: They can speak, listen and interpret, in most cases read and write languages other than their mother tongue, actively. It will not matter if they learned the languages from birth or in their toddler years, what makes it wonderful is that they can effectively use them to communicate, differentiate between each language and are able to switch between them while conversing.

Bilingual infants notice the presence of more than one type of speech and then can sort the information corresponding to each of these objects. This is a regular cognitive workout that enhances broader mental skills beyond language. But, how can infants possibly do that?

What Research says: Neuroimaging research proves that multilingual children can engage both hemispheres of their brains, in particular the inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri more symmetrical than monolingual children, whose brain activity are more left-sided.

Some key brain regions that undergo functional and structural changes while being exposed to a multi-language environment are highlighted here:

1.  First, the Medial frontal cortex which is the brain’s “error detector” and “attention manager”. Functional changes due to exposure to more than one language early in life leads to improved attention-control, decision-making and emotional regulation.

2.  The second region, the Premotor cortex which is the “movement planner” and  “task switcher” of the brain, and also shows functional changes due to multilingual competence, evident as easily switching between tasks and actions.

3. The third region undergoes structural adaptations, called the Caudate nucleus, which is the “habit and pattern helper” of the brain. This leads to smooth language use over time, thus improved ability to learn patterns and sequences, along with language control and processing.

Advantages for Multilingual children:

1. Enhanced literacy skills: The critical period for language learning is before 7 years, and identifying with more than one language can positively impact the reading and writing abilities of children.

2. Cognitive advantages: Bilingualism fosters language awareness in children, helping them to understand and manipulate language structures, which can support tasks like thinking, reasoning, understanding and learning.

3. Less loss of Grey matter: From late childhood to adolescence, bilinguals experienced less Grey Matter loss compared with monolinguals, indicating a buffering effect. This may delay symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, promoting cognitive reserve and maintaining brain integrity in aging.

4. White matter development: Starting in mid-to-late adolescence, bilinguals displayed greater White Matter integrity, particularly in striatal–inferior frontal tracts, which support language control and executive function processing.

5. Language-Specific Trends: Bilinguals excel in sound-to-print and also meaning-to-print associations, which can influence their approach to academic tasks in their primary language of instruction.

6. Vocabulary Development: Bilingual children may have comparable academic vocabularies to monolingual peers but stronger knowledge of non-academic words, which can enrich their overall language skills. ​

Raising a multilingual child isn’t just about speaking more than one language—it’s about giving their brain the ultimate workout. From better focus to stronger memory and even a head start on protecting brain health later in life, the rewards last a lifetime. Lifelong multilingual minds aren’t just different, they’re built for brilliance.

References:

1. Pliatsikas C, Meteyard L, Veríssimo J, DeLuca V, Shattuck K, Ullman MT. The effect of bilingualism on brain development from early childhood to young adulthood. Brain Structure and Function. 2020 Sep;225(7):2131-52.

2. Della Rosa PA, Videsott G, Borsa VM, Catricalà E, Pecco N, Alemanno F, Canini M, Falini A, Franceschini R, Abutalebi J. The Neurodevelopmental Dynamics of Multilingual Experience During Childhood: A Longitudinal Behavioral, Structural, and Functional MRI Study. Brain Sciences. 2025 Jan 9;15(1):54.

3. Costa A, Sebastián-Gallés N. How does the bilingual experience sculpt the brain?. Nature reviews neuroscience. 2014 May;15(5):336-45.

4. Zhang K, Sun X, Flores-Gaona Z, Yu CL, Eggleston RL, Nickerson N, Caruso VC, Tardif T, Kovelman I. Cross-linguistic transfer in bilingual children's phonological and morphological awareness skills: a longitudinal perspective. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 2025 Mar;28(2):327-42.

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