Two languages, one developing brain: event-related potentials to words in bilingual toddlers

Infant bilingualism offers a unique opportunity to study the relative effects of language experience and maturation on brain development, with each child serving as his or her own control. Event‐related potentials (ERPs) to words were examined in 19‐ to 22‐month‐old English‐Spanish bilingual toddler...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental science 2006-01, Vol.9 (1), p.F1-F12
Main Authors: Conboy, Barbara T., Mills, Debra L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Analysis of Variance
Bilingualism
Brain
Brain - growth & development
California
Child development
Developmental psychology
Electroencephalography
English
English language
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
Humans
Infant
Language acquisition
Language Enrichment
Male
Multilingualism
Neurological Organization
Preschool children
Spanish
Spanish language
Suffixes
Toddlers
Vocabulary
Vocabulary Development
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Summary:Infant bilingualism offers a unique opportunity to study the relative effects of language experience and maturation on brain development, with each child serving as his or her own control. Event‐related potentials (ERPs) to words were examined in 19‐ to 22‐month‐old English‐Spanish bilingual toddlers. The children's dominant vs. nondominant languages elicited different patterns of neural activity in the lateral asymmetry of an early positive component (P100), and the latencies and distributions of ERP differences to known vs. unknown words from 200–400 and 400–600 ms. ERP effects also differed for ‘high’ and ‘low’ vocabulary groups based on total conceptual vocabulary scores. The results indicate that the organization of language‐relevant brain activity is linked to experience with language rather than brain maturation.
ISSN:1363-755X
1467-7687
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00453.x