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

[Lise Menn]

Interesting ideas, but assembling the data is a huge job. BTW, if you  
follow the link to the Neurology abstract, you can find a link to the  
pdf of the full article for download.
	Lise

On Feb 22, 2011, at 4:51 PM, Tom Givon wrote:

>
>
> Thanks, Lise. Still, there was only an abstract there, and it does  
> not answer Osten's very apt question: Are all types & degrees of  
> bilingualism equally effective as to the reported effect?  I think  
> of most interest, from my perspective, is this question: Is there a  
> difference here between early (childhood) SLA vs. late (post-pubert)  
> SLA? I keep going back to the studies by my colleague Helen Neville  
> & her cohorts (early 1990s), showing a strong neurological  
> difference between the two types of (fluent) bilingualism. My  
> interpretation of her findings is that fluent late bilinguals work  
> their (covert) R-cortex attentional system much harder to achieve  
> their fluency, presumable to compensate for a much lower activation  
> of the L-cortex IFG. If I could venture a guess, the subjects of the  
> Canadian report were all immigrants & late-bilinguals. If true, this  
> could mean that accelerated attentional work rather than  
> bilingualism per se  is behind the phenomenon.
>
> Apropos, it would be nice to do some comparison between high- 
> performance musicians vs. non-musicians. My  guess would be that  
> musicians who are good at running several melody lines (voices)  
> simultaneously (say conductors? Pianists? Singers-guitarists?  
> Singers-pianists? Good double-string fiddlers?) probably have  
> accelerated attentional activation too. And assuming that music is  
> just another language (to some of us this is sorta obvious), could  
> fluent musicians be studied as another bilingual sample?
>
> Cheers,  TG
>
> ==============
>
>
> On 2/22/2011 3:34 PM, Lise Menn wrote:
>> go look at the original publication - the link is posted, in the  
>> Guardian article, and here it is, also:
>> http://www.neurology.org/content/75/19/1726.abstract?sid=63045016-6a3b-4c35-86d2-ea93215d4fde
>> Lise
>>
>> On Feb 22, 2011, at 3:08 PM, Östen Dahl wrote:
>>
>>> So what does "bilingual" mean in this context? It seems to me that  
>>> it is being used in a rather vague way, possibly conflating quite  
>>> different situations. Is a bilingual person someone who has grown  
>>> up speaking more than one language, or is it anyone who has some  
>>> knowledge of a second language? And it is using the second  
>>> language, or knowing it, that is crucial? -- Having to speak a non- 
>>> native language daily may be like solving cross-words, which is  
>>> supposed to be good for keeping your cognitive abilities intact.  
>>> But if you know the language from an early age, it might not take  
>>> any special effort to speak it, and thus there may be no positive  
>>> effect. So generalizing about "bilingual people" would be rather  
>>> misleading. But maybe there are other things going on.
>>> - östen
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
>>> Från: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu 
>>> ] För alex gross
>>> Skickat: den 20 februari 2011 23:28
>>> Till: funknet at mailman.rice.edu
>>> Ämne: [FUNKNET] "Being bilingual may delay Alzheimer's and boost  
>>> brain power..."
>>>
>>> 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
>>>
>>
>> Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
>> 1625 Mariposa Ave    Fax: 303-413-0017
>> Boulder CO 80302
>> http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html
>>
>> Professor Emerita of Linguistics
>> Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
>> University of  Colorado
>>
>> Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]
>> Fellow, Linguistic Society of America
>>
>> Campus Mail Address:
>> UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science
>>
>> Campus Physical Address:
>> CINC 234
>> 1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Lise Menn                      Home Office: 303-444-4274
1625 Mariposa Ave	Fax: 303-413-0017
Boulder CO 80302
http://spot.colorado.edu/~menn/index.html	

Professor Emerita of Linguistics
Fellow, Institute of Cognitive Science
University of  Colorado

Secretary, AAAS Section Z [Linguistics]
Fellow, Linguistic Society of America

Campus Mail Address:
UCB 594, Institute for Cognitive Science

Campus Physical Address:
CINC 234
1777 Exposition Ave, Boulder