How the Age of Language Acquisition Relates to Creativity

The relationship between bilingualism and its effects on cognitive development has been the center of a long running debate. We studied the differences in verbal and nonverbal creative thinking between a group of Armenian-Russian bilinguals who started to learn the two languages at the same time (“simultaneous” bilinguals) and a group of Armenian-Russian bilinguals who started to learn one of the two languages 2-4 years later (“successive” bilinguals). “Simultaneous” bilingualism facilitates the nonverbal ability to propose a variety of unrelated ideas. Nonverbal creativity of “simultaneous bilinguals” is organized in a more complex way than the one of “successive” bilinguals.