Elsa O’Brien López

Both languages are active in the brain of the bilingual speaker and this strengthens inhibitory control amongst other executive functions.

What is neurodivergence?

Neurodivergence- also referred to as neurodiversity at times- is an umbrella term that encompasses all specific learning differences such as Autism, dyslexia and ADHD, among others. Neurodiversity Week is celebrated in the UK every March.   It gives us the chance to talk about diversity and differences in the way our brains are wired, the way we perceive the world around us and in the way we interact with it.

What are executive functions and how are they affected in neurodivergent people?

Executive functions are a set of cognitive skills that help individuals plan, organise, manage time, make decisions, and control impulses. These functions are essential for goal-setting, problem-solving, and everyday tasks, and they are often associated with the brain’s prefrontal cortex. The key components of executive functions typically include:

1. Working memory – The ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind over short periods.
   
2. Inhibitory control – The ability to control impulses and resist distractions.
   
3. Cognitive flexibility – The ability to switch between tasks, adapt to changing situations, and apply new solutions to problems when circumstances start to change.
   
4. Planning and organisation – The ability to set goals, plan how to achieve them, and organise tasks in a logical order (foresight).
   
5. Emotional regulation – The ability to manage emotions and respond appropriately in different situations.
   
6. Self-monitoring – The ability to assess and adjust one’s own behavior or performance based on feedback (hindsight).

How are executive functions affected in neurodivergent people?

Neurodivergent individuals often experience challenges with one or more of these executive functions. These difficulties can manifest in various ways depending on the specific condition and vary from person to person even if two people share the same the type of neurodivernce. Biological sex can also have an impact on how neurodivergence and deficits on executive functioning manifest.

Can neurodivergent people learn languages?

Unless there is a professional recommendation against it, the answer is: yes, absolutely! Neurodivergent people can learn additional languages. The key is understanding the specific needs and strengths of the individual, as well as tailoring the language-learning process to suit their style of learning.

Young children, for instance, learn languages in a very intuitive way, using their right brain which is the one related to emotions, intuition and musicality. In fact, this is how we all learn our mother tongue. Learning additional languages in a way that resembles more how we learned our first language can be a way of overcoming barriers to learning in the academic setting due to difficulties maintaining attention, with working memory or in other executive functions.

What are the benefits of learning a second language for the executive functions?

Nowadays, the benefits of bilingualism are rarely contested. However, when pointing them out, we tend to focus on the professional and educational benefits. It is also becoming common to acknowledge the social and cultural benefits of learning additional languages to the majority language in one’s country. For instance, learning our family’s heritage language will allow us to maintain contact with our greater family and learn about their culture and traditions. In the same way, learning a second language will help us when travelling to the country where that language is spoken and to build relationships with other people that speak it.

But there are many other benefits to learning a second language that have a direct positive impact on our executive functions. For this reason, learning additional languages can help people who have a deficit or dysregulation in them. Bialystock (2015) and other researchers talk about the enhanced control of bilinguals over executive functions.

The reason why bilingualism can help develop executive functions is the fact that both languages are active in the brain of the bilingual speaker even when only one of the languages is being used. The executive function system is fortified when bilingual individuals have to select one language and inhibit the other one, or when they have to switch between them.

In research carried out by Ellen Bialystock in 2015, she observed how bilingual children outperform monolingual children in tasks that required ‘more effortful and controlled attention’. Overall, bilingualism seems to strengthen working memory, attention, inhibition and shifting.

For this reason, learning languages can strengthen everyone’s executive functioning and be especially beneficial for neurodivergent learners who might have a deficit or dysregulation in them.