Bilingual education is controversial in the United States. 41 , a growing body of research shows that 42 speaking two languages comes with certain types of improved mental 43 . Being able to use two languages and never knowing which one to be used right now is good to the brain. The attentional executive system, crucial for all higher thought, seems to be 44 .
Executive functioning allows us to keep a goal in mind, take 45 to achieve that goal, and to ignore other information that might 46 us from that goal. The question is: Would it be the case that bilinguals, by the 47 need for controlling the two languages, develop a more efficient executive functioning system. The results suggest that bilinguals 48 have this positive collateral effect, which is even stronger when it goes to kids and older people. These are ages 49 executive functioning is worse.
Bilinguals do better at tests that require multitasking, including ones that 50 driving and talking on a phone. And the longer people have spoken multiple languages, the greater the cognitive 51 . There are even benefits when languages were 52 at later ages.
Certainly, bilingualism comes with some 53 . Bilinguals have more "tip-of-the-tongue" problems. There are a couple of milliseconds before they can target. Bilingual children, also, have 54 a smaller vocabulary in each of their languages than monolingual children, 55 they probably know more words altogether.
Still, all of these findings are 56 abstract. It is difficult to take laboratory findings showing better executive functioning in bilinguals and demonstrate that they 57 into better performance in the workplace or some other practical 58 . The only real-world application preliminarily demonstrated may be that multilingualism can 59 health benefits to Alzheimer"s patients. Bilinguals show 60 of the disease up to four years later than monolinguals.