title: Bilingualism yields language-specific plasticity in left hemisphere's circuitry for learning to read in young children.
abstract: How does bilingual exposure impact children's neural circuitry for learning to read? Theories of bilingualism suggests that exposure to two languages may yield a functional and neuroanatomical adaptation to support the learning of two languages (Klein et al., 2014). To test the hypothesis that this neural adaptation may vary as a function of structural and orthographic characteristics of bilinguals' two languages, we compared Spanish-English and French-English bilingual children, and English monolingual children, using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy neuroimaging (fNIRS, ages 6-10, N =26). Spanish offers consistent sound-to-print correspondences ("phonologically transparent" or "shallow"); such correspondences are more opaque in French and even more opaque in English (which has both transparent and "phonologically opaque" or "deep" correspondences). Consistent with our hypothesis, both French- and Spanish-English bilinguals showed hyperactivation in left posterior temporal regions associated with direct sound-to-print phonological analyses and hypoactivation in left frontal regions associated with assembled phonology analyses. Spanish, but not French, bilinguals showed a similar effect when reading Irregular words. The findings inform theories of bilingual and cross-linguistic literacy acquisition by suggesting that structural characteristics of bilinguals' two languages and their orthographies have a significant impact on children's neuro-cognitive architecture for learning to read.
authors.affiliation: Haskins Laboratories, 300 George Street, Suite 900, New Haven CT06511, USA. Electronic address: kaja.jasinska@yale.edu.
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Jasińska
authors.affiliation: U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC, USA. Electronic address: melody.berens@gmail.com.
authors.forename: M S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Berens
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan, Department of Psychology, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor MI 48104, USA. Electronic address: kovelman@umich.edu.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kovelman
authors.affiliation: National Science Foundation, Science of Learning Center; and The Petitto Brain and Language Laboratory for Neuroimaging, Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, USA. Electronic address: laura-ann.petitto@gallaudet.edu.
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Petitto
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology*; D011932:Reading; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Bilingual reading acquisition; Bilingualism; Child literacy; Reading brain