User:Varnellr16/sandbox

= Guidelines =

Content

 * How recent is the material that is being cited. Are there more recent studies that counter some of the information?


 * How does the article flow. Is it addressing information that supports and relates to the topic?
 * How could the article still be improved?

Tone

 * Are you writing from a neutral position? Is the information being cited supported by biased sources?
 * Are there certain subjects that are being touched on unevenly?

Sourcing

 * Are the sources being cited trustworthy? Do the sources approach topics with a neutral tone; if not, is the source honest about their bias?


 * Are the sources being cited relevant to claims being made in the topic. Are the links functioning?

Talk Page

 * How does the information compare or contrast to the its representation in school?


 * What do the discussions are taking place, and who is talking about it?
 * Is the article represented in any WikiProjects? Is the content thorough and valued?

= Information to consider =


 * Sources all seem to be reputable, although one is a psychology website which err on the side of controversy. Although the sources that are provided on this site are reliable themselves.
 * The article itself is C Rated : it isn't quite up to standard in some of the requirements
 * High importance rating
 * The talk page only has 5 comments and they are widely spaced apart, over years. The two most recent ones address many of the issues. "The article seems POV." Maybe I can help fix better the quality of the article. Hopefully

= Article Evaluation =

Wikipedia Article
Article Title : Cognitive advantages of bilingualism

Wikipedia Article Link - Cognitive advantages of bilingualism

Personal Notes for the article:

 * There are multiple titles that are not neutral. The author of the article uses words like (Some, and many and multiple etc.) in reference to the studies that suggest there are cognitive benefits to bilingualism; however, the way they are used makes it appear as though he/she is pushing their opinions in.
 * Change the title to something more neutral. For example : "The Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism."
 * There seems to be sections where they are not particularly that well cited, and appear grouped up as mini talking points from the authors perspective.
 * Work with the flow a bit, try and get it to read and flow smoother. Focus on what people in the fields have found without creeping the idea of what the title suggests.

What am I wanting to contribute to the article?

 * Remove irrelevant information
 * Bring the overall tone to a more neutral zone
 * Make sure sections are being referenced properly and are cited
 * Contribute to sections adding additional information

= Notes =

Reading ability

 * 4 - 5 year old children
 * Monolingual English, bilingual Chinese and English, Bilingual French and English
 * All of the children had the foundational understanding of reading, but were not capable of doing it by themselves
 * The bilingual children were familiar with stories of both their native tongue and english
 * Bilingual children understand the symbolic representation better than the monolingual
 * Chinese students showed the highest recognition of english print

= Creative Commons Pictures =


 * WAKUNI CITY, Japan (img1) From - https://www.mcasiwakuni.marines.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2001846736/

= Edits and Drafts = Anything under the Original section are unedited

Anything under the Edits section have been copied from: Cognitive advantages of bilingualism

= Original =

Executive functions
Executive function is the domain of high-level cognitive processes that assists in goal-oriented tasks, such as problem solving, mental flexibility, attentional control, inhibitory control, and task switching. Much of the current research about cognitive effects of bilingualism investigates a potential correlation between bilingualism and enhanced executive function. Results support that bilinguals show better executive control than monolinguals when matched in age and other background factors (e.g. socio-economic status), suggesting an interaction between being bilingual and higher executive functioning skills. Executive function is crucial to academic success across age groups. Executive function may also have effects for older adults. Inhibitory processes of adults who learned a second language at a young age show better controlled processing than monolingual adults, which has been linked to slowing age-related cognitive decline such as dementia.

Reading ability
Bilinguals have also been found to outperform monolinguals in reading ability, as seen in another study by Bialystok. To analyze this area of bilingualism, Bialystok discussed the representational principle, which refers to the symbolic representation of spoken language, or the connection between spoken and written language systems. Understanding this principle would help one with acquiring literacy. For the testing of this principle, she gave children a "Moving Word Task" where the child had to appropriately match the written word to the object on a card. If they could correctly match the two after some rearranging of the cards, it was agreed that they could understand written words as representations of specific words whose meanings cannot change. The study was taken further in order to see when bilinguals grasped this principle in comparison to monolinguals. The results showed that bilingual children were correct on their "Moving Word Task" over 80% of the time, which is a percentage equal to that of monolinguals who were one year older than the bilinguals being tested. Overall, the bilinguals seemed to understand the representational principle earlier than monolinguals, meaning they were earlier prepared for literacy acquisition.

In another study done by Durgunoglu, Nagy, and Hancin-Bhatt, this same concept for bilinguals' reading abilities was also studied. For this specific study, native Spanish speaking children who were learning to read English were tested. The researchers observed these bilinguals to find that their levels of phonological awareness and word recognition in Spanish could predict how well they would be able to recognize words in English. The results showed that the phonological awareness skills established in one language could be transferred to the reading ability in another language. Again, bilinguals seem to be more advanced than monolinguals when it comes to reading ability.

Language structure and awareness
In their book In Other Words, Ellen Bialystok and Kenji Hakuta, both professors studying bilingualism, examined the idea that "the knowledge of two languages is greater than the sum of its parts." They argued that the linguistic benefits of being bilingual are more than simply being able to speak two languages. For instance, if a child is learning two languages whose structures and rules are significantly different from each other, this would require the child to think in more complicated ways. Take for example the arbitrariness of labels for objects, or distinguishing between and using two different grammatical or syntactical structures. These areas would be quite difficult for a child to learn, but would increase the understanding of the structure of language and help gain a greater awareness of meaning. This greater awareness of meaning for bilinguals is what is referred to as metalinguistic awareness (see metalinguistics abilities section above).

Is bilingualism or executive control the causative force?
Hakuta and Diaz, addressed the chicken and egg question concerning bilinguals and their enhanced cognitive abilities; do children with greater cognitive abilities tend to learn more than one language, or is it knowing more than one language that enhances cognitive ability? They administered a set of non-verbal tests that are designed to measure cognitive ability (Raven's Progressive Matrices) to a bilingual sample of children. They found a high correlation with the degree of bilingualism (how proficient the individuals were in each of their languages) of their sample and scores on the test, as well as bilingualism did in fact predict performance (and therefore cognitive ability). However, an important point to note, is that most native bilinguals haven't learnt a second language because they are more intelligent. In most cases, they have grown up in a family where use of the two languages is necessary and therefore it is unlikely that the child's intelligence will allow them to learn the second language.

History
Over the course of the past few years, the prevalence of bilinguals in the United States has increased dramatically. While the United States Census Bureau does not directly poll for bilingualism, they do poll for what languages are used in an individual's home, and if it is a language other than English, they then poll for how well that same individual speaks English. In 2012, François Grosjean, a professor of Linguistics from the University of Neuchâtel, interpreted the results from the Census Bureau as follows: 11% of the population was bilingual in 1980, 14% in 1990, and 20% in 2012. This positive increase matches the shift to more positive beliefs about the cognitive advantages of bilingualism.

Before the 1960s, research on bilingual individuals was varied. There was a specific pattern of conclusions, namely that being bilingual was detrimental to a child's linguistic and cognitive development, and that it put the individual at a disadvantage compared to monolingual peers. The general opinion was that bilinguals would have smaller vocabularies, stunted cognitive abilities and that children learning two languages from a young age would be spending too much of their energy differentiating and building the two languages to become competent in either one. Studies referred to the topic as the "problem of bilingualism" or the "handicapping influence of bilingualism" and reported that bilinguals performed worse in IQ tests and suffered in most aspects of language development.

These studies suffered from several methodological problems that undermined the soundness of their conclusions. They employed unstandardized and subjective definitions of bilingualism and of a bilingual individual (e.g., labeling a person as bilingual or monolingual through assumptions based on the national origin of that person's parents or even based on that person's family name), raising the concern that there is no way of determining whether their samples were truly representative of a bilingual population. They also did not control for socioeconomic status (SES) and many of them administered verbal-intelligence tests to non-proficient speakers of a second language in that second language.

In 1962, Peal and Lambert published a study highlighting the importance of controlling for such factors as age, sex, and SES, as well as of having a standardized measure for bilingualism when selecting a sample of bilinguals to be studied. In their study they carefully matched bilingual to monolingual participants, and they found that the bilinguals showed significant advantages over the monolinguals in both verbal and non-verbal tests, especially in non-verbal tests that required more mental flexibility.

Since then, the literature has consistently found advantages for bilinguals over matched monolingual peers, in particular in relation to cognitive areas of aptitude such as perception and executive functioning.

= Edited = ( -- NOTE -- Sections that include (WIP) are a Work In Progress -- NOTE -- )

 Letter Issues Guide - (N - Neutrality) (R - Rewrite) (C - Cite) ( Nothing next to it - Finished )

Executive Functions
Executive function is the domain of high-level cognitive processes that assists in goal-oriented tasks, such as problem solving, mental flexibility, attentional control, inhibitory control, and task switching. Much of the current research on cognitive effects of bilingualism investigate a correlation between bilingualism and alterations in the brain. A study called "Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control" amongst various similarly conducted studies released data suggesting that monolinguals and bilinguals were found having varying ability in the executive function part of the brain. From these tests, bilinguals showed a higher executive control than their monolingual peers. When matched in age and other background factors (e.g. socio-economic status), indications of a possible correlation between the demands on the brain that learning multiple languages requires and higher executive functioning skills. John R. Best, an author of Relations between executive function and academic achievement from ages 5 to 17 in a large, representative national sample suggests that executive function is crucial to academic success across age groups. Executive function may also have effects for older adults. Inhibitory processes of adults who learned a second language at a young age show better controlled processing than monolingual adults. Reported links to slowing age-related cognitive decline such as dementia have been found.

Reading ability
As an attempt to further analyze bilingualism as it relates to reading capability, there was another study done by by Bialystok. This study was conducted by testing a group of children ages 4 to 5, equally familiar in secondary language as with their native tongues. The assessment was made using what Bialystok discussed as a representational principle; which refers to a symbolic representation of spoken language or the connection between the spoken and written language systems. For the testing of this principle, she gave children a "Moving Word Task" where a child would have to appropriately match a written word to an object on a card. If they could correctly matched the two after some rearranging of the cards, it suggested that they could understand the written words as representations of specific words whose meanings cannot change.

Language structure and awareness
In their book In Other Words, Ellen Bialystok and Kenji Hakuta, both professors studying bilingualism, examined the idea that "the knowledge of two languages is greater than the sum of its parts." They argued that there are linguistic benefits to being bilingual and that they are more than simply being able to speak two languages. A child learning two languages whose structures and rules are significantly different from each other requires the child to think in cognitively demanding ways. An example of this cognitive demand in action would be in the arbitrariness of labels for objects, or distinguishing between and using two different grammatical or syntactical structures. These areas are quite arduous for a child to learn, but have been shown to increase the understanding the structure of language and introduce a greater awareness of meaning. Bilinguals who have worked through these strenuous stages of development obtain what is referred to as metalinguistic awareness (see metalinguistics abilities section above).

Is bilingualism or executive control the causative force?
Hakuta and Diaz, addressed the chicken and egg question concerning bilinguals and their reported enhanced cognitive abilities; do children with greater cognitive abilities tend to learn more than one language, or could knowing more than one language contribute to enhanced cognitive ability? They administered a set of non-verbal tests that are designed to measure cognitive ability (Raven's Progressive Matrices) to a bilingual sample of children. From these tests, the results showed a higher correlation with the degree of bilingualism (how proficient the individuals were in each of their languages) of their sample and scores on the test, as well as bilingualism did in fact predict performance (and therefore cognitive ability). However, an important point to note, is that most native bilinguals haven't learnt a second language because they are more intelligent. In most cases, they have grown up in a family where use of the two languages is necessary and therefore it is unlikely that the child's intelligence will allow them to learn the second language.

History
Over the course of the past few years, the prevalence of bilinguals in the United States has increased dramatically. While the United States Census Bureau does not directly poll for bilingualism, they do poll for what languages are used in an individual's home, and if it is a language other than English, they then poll for how well that same individual speaks English. In 2012, François Grosjean, a professor of Linguistics from the University of Neuchâtel, interpreted the results from the Census Bureau as follows: 11% of the population was bilingual in 1980, 14% in 1990, and 20% in 2012. This positive increase raised a question of what depth there is to the cognitive aspects of bilingualism and whether or not there were benefits to becoming multilingual.

According to the Singapore Management University (SMU) School of Social Sciences, research before the 1960s on bilingual individuals was varied, but commonly supporting the idea that there were disadvantages to bilingualism. A general opinion was that bilinguals would have smaller vocabularies, stunted cognitive abilities and that children learning two languages from a young age would be spending too much of their energy differentiating and building the two languages to become competent in either one. This information alluded to the idea that being bilingual was detrimental to a child's linguistic and cognitive development. According to a journal called "The Journal of Genetic Psychology" various reported studies at the time that held these perceptions held a similar view on bilingualism, and it was referred to as a "problem of bilingualism" or the "handicapping influence of bilingualism." Following studies reported that bilinguals performed worse in IQ tests and suffered in most aspects of language development. Journalist Rafael M. Diaz, from Yale University mentions that perspectives like these were in part believed to have been influenced by variables that had impacted or changed how a society functioned.

In 1977, the (American Institute for Research) published an influential study which discussed bilingualism as it relates to education and what effects there are on a child's performance maintaining with the class. This study, along with other research of its time, played a large role in our understanding of multilingualism and the effects that it has on the brain. While historically relevant and necessary, in context of meeting todays modern methodological standards, these studies in particular are argued to be missing necessary pieces of data that create controversy over their credibility. With current research and data suggesting benefits to bilingualism, the soundness of the former studies conclusions are in brought into question. According to "The Journal of Genetic Psychology," the many of these studies employed unstandardized and subjective definitions of bilingualism and of a bilingual individual (e.g., labeling a person as bilingual or monolingual through assumptions based on the national origin of that person's parents or even based on that person's family name), raising the concern that there is no way of determining whether their samples were truly representative of a bilingual population. Another element that contrasted with more modern researching techniques was the lack of a control for socioeconomic status (SES) and many of them administered verbal-intelligence tests to non-proficient speakers of a second language in that second language.

In 1962, Peal and Lambert published a study highlighting the importance of controlling for such factors as age, sex, and SES, as well as of having a standardized measure for bilingualism when selecting a sample of bilinguals to be studied. In their study they carefully matched bilingual to monolingual participants, and found that the bilinguals appeared to have significant advantages to that of their monolingual peers outperforming in both verbal and non-verbal tests, more specifically in the non-verbal tests. In continuation of this study, and studies alike, the literature after this point began to undergo a shift of focus erring more particularly into areas of cognitive development and aptitude such as: perception and executive functioning.

=Works Cited=

Executive Functions
( Psychology and Aging ) - Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task.

( Journal of Experimental Psychology ) - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

( Cognition ) - Bilingualism aids conflict resolution: evidence from the ANT task.

( Psychology and Aging ) - Effects of bilingualism and aging on executive function and working memory.

( Review of Educational Research ) - A systematic review and meta-analysis of the cognitive correlates of bilingualism.

( Learning and Individual Differences ) - Relations between Executive Function and Academic Achievement from Ages 5 to 17 in a Large, Representative National Sample.

( Neuropsychologia ) - Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of symptoms of dementia.

Reading ability
( Developmental Psychology ) - Effects of bilingualism and biliteracy on children's emerging concepts of print.

( Developmental Psychology ) - Languages, scripts, and the environment: Factors in the developing concepts of print.

( Journal of Educational Psychology ) - Cross-Language transfer of phonological awareness.

( Literacy Development in Multilingual Context ) - Acquiring literacy in English and Spanish in the United States.

Language structure and awareness
( New York L BasicBooks. ) - In other words: the science and psychology of second-language acquisition.

( Developmental Psychology ) - Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness.

( Review of Educational Research ) - A systematic review and meta-analysis of the cognitive correlates of bilingualism.

Is bilingualism or executive control the causative force?
( Children's language ) - The relationship between degree of bilingualism and cognitive ability: a critical discussion and some new longitudinal data.

History
( Psychology Today ) - Bilinguals in the United Sates.

( Teachers college Columbia university ) - Bilingualism and mental development.

( Children's Language, vol.5. Erlbaum. pp. 320-344 ) - The relationship between degree of bilingualism and cognitive ability.

( The Journal of Genetic Psychology. 103(2): 259–282 ) - Bilingualism and the measurement of intelligence: Review of a decade of research.

( The Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology. 82 (1): 21–57 ) - A review of the literature on the effects of bilingualism upon the measurement of intelligence.

My Citations: All of my collected sources
( Georgetown University School of Languages and Linguistics ) - Bilingualism and Language

( Psychology Today ) - What are the Effects of Bilingualism

( NCBI ) - The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual

( NIH ) - Bilingual Effects in the Brain

( Medical News Today ) - Bilingualism: What happens in the brain?

( Science Daily ) - Bilingualism and the Brain: How Language Shapes Our Ability to Process Information

( Review of Research in Education, 10(1), 23–54. ) - The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognitive Development.