Bilingual benefits in the aging population and population with neurodegenerative illnesses

This talk aims to discuss new research areas suggesting that being bilingual could bring some cognitive benefits, particularly to the aging population. Even more, that in the case of the aging population with neurodegenerative diseases being bilingual could bring not only some cognitive benefits but even a delay in the onset of these disease symptoms. For example, it could delay the symptoms of dementia in around 4 years. These ideas are still debatable, however, if the mounting evidence confirms such benefits, no matter how small, they could have an important impact on societies today where life expectancies is continuously increasing.

Fraibet Aveledo is a lecturer in Child Language Development and Bilingualism at the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics at Reading University. There she teaches the modules of Language and the Mind, Child Language Development and Issues in Bilingualism. Fraibet’s research interests are mainly related to the effect of bilingualism on neurodegenerative diseases, particularly in multiple sclerosis. Also, she is investigates the cross-linguistic influence of languages on the bilingual speaker.