Benefits

There are many advantages to being bilingual. If two or more languages are learned during childhood, these benefits will continue throughout a child's life. Different types of benefits are listed below. 

Column 1 lists different bilingualism benefits. Column 2 features a corresponding graphic.
Sociocultural
  • Encouraging the development of a child's home language supports their ties to family, heritage, culture, and community. This also contributes to the building of their personal identity.
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Cognitive
  • Bilingual individuals show superiority in concept formation and greater mental flexibility than monolingual individuals. This allows them to process information efficiently and adaptively.
  • Studies show that bilingualism in older adults who have been bilingual for most of their life seem to protect against age-related cognitive decline and memory maintenance. 
  • Bilingual infants demonstrate enhanced brain plasticity and increased language processing skills.
A rainbow colored brain graphic
Educational
  • When a child becomes proficient in their first language, it positively impacts the acquisition of a second language. The abilities and skills that were developed in the first language will transfer to the second language.
Graphic of a graduation cap
Economic
  • The ability to read, write, and speak in two or more languages is a great advantage in the job market. Bilingual individuals will have an advantage over monolingual individuals in each of these areas.
A stick figure climbs an ascending bar graph
Public Health
  • Bilingualism can be a protective factor in public health settings, as it allows clear communication between physicians and families or individuals, especially in the deaf community. Language deprivation and the lack of access to health information due to poor communication pose the greatest health risk to deaf children.
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Related articles

Collier, V. “Acquiring a Second Language for School,”  Directions in Language and Education (1995) 1(4).

Kovács, Á. M., & Mehler, J. (2009). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(16), 6556-6560.

Maria Vender, Mirta Vernice, & Antonella Sorace. (2021). Supporting Bilingualism in Vulnerable Populations.  Sustainability,  13(13830), 13830.

Nickels, L., Hameau, S., Nair, V. K. K., Barr, P., & Biedermann, B. (2019). Ageing with bilingualism: benefits and challenges.  Speech, Language and Hearing,  22(1), 32–50.

Schweizer, T. A., Ware, J., Fischer, C. E., Craik, F. I., & Bialystok, E. (2012). Bilingualism as a contributor to cognitive reserve: Evidence from brain atrophy in Alzheimer’s disease. cortex, 48(8), 991-996.

Schroeder, S. R., & Marian, V. (2012). A bilingual advantage for episodic memory in older adults. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 24(5), 591-601.

Wilkinson, E., & Morford, J. P. (2020). How bilingualism contributes to healthy development in deaf children: A public health perspective.  Maternal and Child Health Journal,  24(11), 1330-1338.