"Being bilingual may delay Alzheimer's and boost brain power..."

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Colleagues,

    Does this work control for SES?  In the old days of research on IQ and bilingualism, the target populations were lower-SES Welsh miners  (as in the depictions in  "How Green Was My Valley") and the results showed that their bilingualism was "subtractive".  In this age of globalization, on the other hand, the bililngual groups being studied often have certain educational and social advantages and now we find that bilingualism is "additive" and "protective".  Of course, these advantaged groups have better access to health care, better diets, better working conditions, and so on (as in the Belsky model of SES effects).  Don't we need comparisons that contrast these various social configurations, before we can conclude that bilingualism per se has these positive effects.  But perhaps the symposium or some of the research papers produced by this illustrious group of researchers has already tackled this issue?  I would love pointers to papers clarifying this issue.

-- Brian MacWhinney

On Feb 20, 2011, at 9:45 PM, Lise Menn wrote:

> AAAS Section Z: Linguistics and Language Sciences are proud to have sponsored this symposium, with presentations by organizer Judith Kroll and by Janet Werker, Karen Emmorey, Teresa Bajo, Sonja Kotz, and Ellen Bialystok.  The evidence presented was very impressive.
> 	Thanks for posting the link, Alex.
> 	Lise Menn, Secretary, Section Z
> 
> On Feb 20, 2011, at 5:27 PM, alex gross wrote:
> 
>> Here's some pleasant news from The Guardian, at least for those of us fortunate enough to be bi- or multi-lingual...assuming it doesn't get contradicted by another set of texts next month...
>> 
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/18/bilingual-alzheimers-brain-power-multitasking
>> 
>> All the best to everyone!
>> 
>> alex
> 
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