Although the cause of primary progressive apraxia of speech has not been determined, an abnormal accumulation of tau protein has been found in the brains of those with apraxia of speech who have died.
Bilingualism Rewires the Brain
Bilingual people use and learn language in ways that change their minds and brains, which has many positive consequences, according to Judith F. Kroll, PhD, a cognitive scientist at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania.
“Recent studies reveal the remarkable ways in which bilingualism changes the brain networks that enable skilled cognition, support fluent language performance, and facilitate new learning,” said Dr. Kroll, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, and Women’s Studies.
Researchers have shown that the brain structures and networks of bilinguals are different from those of monolinguals. Among other things, the changes help bilinguals to speak in the intended language, not to mistakenly speak in the wrong language.
And just as humans are not all the same, bilinguals are not all the same, and the changes in the mind and brain differ, depending on how the individual learned the language, what the two languages are, and the context that the languages are used in.
“What we know from recent research is that at every level of language processing, from words to grammar to speech, we see the presence of cross-language interaction and competition,” said Dr. Kroll. “Sometimes we see these cross-language interactions in behavior, but sometimes we only see them in brain data.”
Both languages are active at all times in bilinguals, meaning that the individuals cannot easily turn off either language, and the languages are in competition with one another. In turn, this causes bilinguals to juggle the two languages, thus reshaping the network in the brain that supports each language.
“The consequences of bilingualism are not limited to language, but reflect a reorganization of brain networks that hold implications for the ways in which bilinguals negotiate cognitive competition more generally,” said Dr. Kroll.
Dr. Kroll was instrumental in establishing the first US chapter of Bilingualism Matters at Penn State within the university’s Center for Language Science. Bilingualism Matters is an international organization that aims to bring practically applicable findings from current bilingual research to the public.