Out­side of the UK, bilin­gual­ism (or even trilin­gual­ism+) is the norm in Europe and, in some coun­tries and/or regions, even expected. With that said, The Econ­o­mist takes a look at the effect bilin­gual­ism has on a child’s brain.

Mon­i­tor­ing lan­guages and keep­ing them sep­a­rate is part of the brain’s exec­u­tive func­tion, so these find­ings sug­gest that even before a child can speak, a bilin­gual envi­ron­ment may speed up that function’s devel­op­ment. Before rush­ing your off­spring into Ton­gan for Tod­dlers, though, there are a few caveats. For one thing, these pre­co­cious cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits have been demon­strated so far only in “crib” bilinguals—those liv­ing in house­holds where two lan­guages are spo­ken rou­tinely. The researchers spec­u­late that it might be the fact of hav­ing to learn two lan­guages in the same set­ting that requires greater use of exec­u­tive func­tion. So whether those ben­e­fits accrue to chil­dren who learn one lan­guage at home, and one at school, remains unclear.

It’s worth not­ing that the exec­u­tive func­tion is only a the­o­ret­i­cal sys­tem, sup­pos­edly respon­si­ble for “plan­ning, cog­ni­tive flex­i­bil­ity, abstract think­ing, rule acqui­si­tion, ini­ti­at­ing appro­pri­ate actions and inhibit­ing inap­pro­pri­ate actions, and select­ing rel­e­vant sen­sory information”.