Bilingualism vs dementia? Ein Augenblick, bitte

For years, studies have attempted to demonstrate that "use it or lose it" is a factor in forestalling senile dementia -- most, to my knowledge, with little success. Now we read this:

Being fluent in two languages may help to keep the brain sharper for longer, a study suggests.

Researchers from York University in Canada carried out tests on 104 people between the ages of 30 and 88. They found that those who were fluent in two languages rather than just one were sharper mentally.

Writing in the journal of Psychology and Ageing, they said being bilingual may protect against mental decline in old age.

Nice try, but read this:

Half of the volunteers came from Canada and spoke only English. The other half came from India and were fluent in both English and Tamil.

So they used two very different groups, completely invalidating the comparison. You'd think a Canadian team would have made better use of the fine pool of bilingual volunteers closer to home.

The volunteers had similar backgrounds in the sense that they were all educated to degree level and were all middle class.

Similar? Look up the percentage of the population educated to degree level in Canada and in India, as well as the percentage qualifying as "middle class". Individuals meeting those standards in Canada are average; in India, anything but. The study is obviously meaningless, but will undoubtedly be taken up as gospel by those who don't read past the headlines.

Posted by David on September 18, 2007 8:33 AM