Neural Differences in Bilingual Children's Arithmetic Processing Depending on Language of Instruction |
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| Authors: | Katrien Mondt Esli Struys Maurits Van den Noort Danielle Balériaux Thierry Metens Philippe Paquier Piet Van de Craen Peggy Bosch Vincent Denolin |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel;2. Research Group of Pain and Neuroscience, Kyung Hee University;3. MR Unit, Department of Medical Imaging, Université Libre de Bruxelles‐Hopital Erasme;4. Department of Neurology and Neuropsychology, Université Libre de Bruxelles‐Hopital Erasme;5. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen |
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| Abstract: | Many children in bilingual regions follow lessons in a language at school (school‐language) that they hardly ever speak at home or in other informal settings. What are the neural effects of this phenomenon? This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigates the effects of using school‐language on brain activity during a high cognitive task in two groups of French/Dutch bilingual children. Participants were asked to assess the correctness of 3‐operand (e.g., 5 ? 2 = 3) and 4‐operand (e.g., 3 ? 2 = 1 + 4) equations, respectively. Instructions about the task were given either in the children's school‐language or in another language that they only used at home. It was found that although both groups recruited a visuomotor occipitofrontal network in the left hemisphere, the children who performed the task in their school‐language showed less activation than the children who did not, indicating the importance of language of instruction for bilingual children's arithmetic processing. |
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