Article: Body of Research Grows on Bilingual Language Acquisition

From http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/health/views/11klass.html?_r=1

Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language
By PERRI KLASS
October 10, 2011

As the relatively new science of bilingualism pushes back to the origins of speech and language, scientists are teasing out the earliest differences between brains exposed to one language and brains exposed to two.

Researchers have found ways to analyze infant behavior — where babies turn their gazes, how long they pay attention — to help figure out infant perceptions of sounds and words and languages, of what is familiar and what is unfamiliar to them. Now, analyzing the neurologic activity of babies’ brains as they hear language, and then comparing those early responses with the words that those children learn as they get older, is helping explain not just how the early brain listens to language, but how listening shapes the early brain.

Read the full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/health/views/11klass.html?_r=1