An Overview of the Bilingual Advantage: History, Mechanisms, and Consequences

Research on the possible cognitive effects of bilingualism on childhood development has provided mixed results when identifying effects in the domains of intelligence and overall language ability. However, evidence has demonstrated advantages for bilinguals in cognitive domains relating to inhibitory control, including executive control, task switching and concept formation, and theory of mind. The current consensus among researchers is that bilingual children are more advanced at solving problems which require the inhibition of misleading information through executive control. Alternative views in which attention is conceptualized as the origin of developmental differences in bilinguals are also reported. Overall, evidence suggests that bilingualism enhances cognitive functions related to inhibition and attention, which are carried out into late adulthood