Autistic children who learn to speak another language may find it easier to switch tasks, a study has found.
Youngsters on the spectrum often have a hard time ‘switching gears’ and chopping their attention between tasks.
But new Canadian research, dubbed ‘surprising’ and ‘exciting’, shows being bilingual could increase their cognitive flexibility.
Parents are often told not to bother teaching their child a second language if they have ASD out of fears it will add to their difficulties.
Lead author Professor Aparna Nadig, based at McGill University in Montreal, said: ‘This is a novel and surprising finding.
Youngsters on the spectrum often have a hard time ‘switching gears’ and chopping their attention between tasks. But new Canadian research shows being bilingual could help
‘Over the past 15 years there has been a significant debate in the field about whether there is a “bilingual advantage” in terms of executive functions.
‘Some researchers have argued convincingly that living as a bilingual person and having to switch languages unconsciously… increases cognitive flexibility.
‘But no one has yet published research that clearly demonstrates that this advantage may also extend to children on the autism spectrum.’
He added that ‘it’s very exciting to find that it does’. The study involved 40 children in a French speaking part of Canada who were all on the spectrum.
Autism: The facts
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the umbrella term for conditions that affect social interaction, communication, interests and behaviour.
Charities estimate there is around 700,000 people who are on the autism spectrum in the UK. In the US, it is as high as 3.5 million.
Figures suggest four boys are diagnosed with autism – which often causes sufferers to struggle with social interaction – to every one girl.
There’s no ‘cure’ for ASD, but speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and educational support are available to help children and parents.
The new study, published in the journal Child Development, suggests that learning a second language could also help curb symptoms.
Dr Ana Maria Gonzalez-Barrero, co-author, added: ‘It is critical to have more sound evidence for families to use when making important educational and child-rearing decisions.’
She added that parents are ‘often advised’ that exposing a child with ASD to more than one language will just worsen their language problems.
How was the study carried out?
Youngsters involved in the experiment were between the ages of six and nine. They were divided into four groups.
Twenty children were bilingual, with half having ASD. The other twenty children, of which half also had ASD, could only speak one language.
They were all asked to sort blue rabbits and red boats that appeared on a computer screen by colour.
They were then asked to switch and sort the same objects instead by their shape – regardless of their colour.
The study found bilingual children with ASD performed significantly better than their monolingual peers when it came to the more complex part.
Future research
Despite the small sample size, the researchers believed the ‘bilingual advantage’ that they saw in children with ASD has highly significant implications.
Further studies are planned to follow the children with ASD that they tested over the next three-five years to see how they develop.
They aim to see whether the bilingual advantage they observed in the lab may also be observed in daily life as the children age.