The overarching aim of the proposed research is to understand READING--and the development of the core cognitive, phonological, and syntactic processes that underlie reading-in BILINGUAL children, and adults. Here we investigate the neurodevelopment, neural systems, and functional neuroanatomy of bilingual reading and concomitant cognitive abilities using state-of-the-art neuroimaging and behavioral techniques. Much controversy exists in education, science, and bilingual homes regarding when (what age) to expose young children to two languages and when and how best to teach such children to read in each of their two reading systems, which we address here: (1) Does bilingual language exposure give rise to concomitant cognitive advantages (such as select enhancement of attention and inhibition abilities), what is its basis, and does it positively transfer to other domains of learning such as reading? (2) Is it best to teach bilingual children their two reading systems sequentially (first one, then the other) or at the same time (simultaneously)? (3) What is the neurodevelopmental time course, functional neuroanatomy, and neural systems underlying bilingual children and adults' cognitive attention and inhibition, phonological and syntactic processing that form the heart of reading in each of their two languages? To answer these questions in a manner that is most widely generalizable, our studies involve children and adults across 4 distinct regions of the United States and Canada, whom use among 5 different world languages, including sign languages. The results of these studies will provide fundamental """"""""evidence-based"""""""" knowledge about the multitude of variables (cognitive, phonological, syntactic) underlying skilled reading acquisition in young bilinguals and the developmental trajectories of these important variables to predict better reading outcome. These studies may directly benefit teachers, clinicians, and parents of bilingual children by informing us about when and how best to teach reading to young bilinguals, and they may fundamentally impact educational policy on the teaching of reading in the United States.
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