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Great interview on bilingualism, sports, education and neuroplasticity — en español

November 2, 2021 by SharpBrains

(trans­la­tion avail­able below)

Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez: “La edu­cación bil­ingüe ayu­da a retrasar prob­le­mas cog­ni­tivos como el alzhéimer” (El Mundo):

PREGUNTA. ¿A qué se ded­i­can los neu­ro­con­sul­tores? ¿Qué relación tienen con la educación?

RESPUESTA. En los últi­mos años ha empeza­do a aumen­tar el interés por mejo­rar la capaci­dad del cere­bro. Al igual que las per­sonas quieren estar en bue­na for­ma físi­ca, se pre­ocu­pan tam­bién por estar en bue­na for­ma cog­ni­ti­va. Se habla cada vez más de con­sul­tores del cere­bro o entre­nadores men­tales y hay más actua­ciones basadas en la neu­ro­plas­ti­ci­dad. Esto se puede aplicar para ayu­dar a que los alum­nos apren­dan más. Por ejem­p­lo, la escuela Arrow­smith de Canadá tiene un pro­gra­ma de refuer­zo cog­ni­ti­vo para alum­nos con necesi­dades espe­ciales. Tam­bién está cre­cien­do mucho el mind­ful­ness para reducir el estrés de niños y profesores.

P. Ust­ed dice que la edu­cación bil­ingüe es un gran ali­a­do del desar­rol­lo cere­bral en los niños. ¿Qué mues­tra la evi­den­cia científica?

R. El bil­ingüis­mo prac­ti­ca­do de for­ma sosteni­da en el tiem­po mejo­ra las fun­ciones ejec­u­ti­vas del cere­bro y ayu­da a retrasar prob­le­mas cog­ni­tivos como el alzhéimer. No impi­de la patología, pero retrasa has­ta cin­co años la apari­ción de sus sín­tomas … El ben­efi­cio del bil­ingüis­mo viene de que obliga a hac­er un esfuer­zo cog­ni­ti­vo en tiem­po real que ejerci­ta la corteza pre­frontal del cere­bro. Las neu­ronas se conectan unas a otras y esas conex­iones se for­t­ale­cen. Cuan­tas más neu­ronas y conex­iones neu­ronales creemos, más reser­va cog­ni­ti­va ten­dremos para la edad de la jubi­lación y más tar­dará en afec­tarnos la enfer­medad. Pero no se con­sigue sólo con el apren­diza­je, sino con la prác­ti­ca con­stante. En EEUU todo el mun­do quiere apren­der chi­no porque se dice que es el idioma del futuro, pero el prob­le­ma es que luego no se prac­ti­ca. Tiene más sen­ti­do apren­der español, porque exis­ten más opciones reales de utilizarlo.

Cuatro horas semanales de ejercicio físico en horario escolar

Para potenciar la «salud cerebral» de los alumnos, recomienda que en los colegios españoles se haga más deporte. «Lo óptimo serían tres o cuatro horas a la semana de ejercicio aeróbico dentro del horario escolar [suele haber dos horas como mucho en Primaria]. El ejercicio físico fuerza a elevar el ritmo cardíaco y enviar más oxígeno al cerebro, lo que genera nuevas neuronas», dice. Y propone un programa en el que roten seis deportes distintos en un curso porque «la variedad, la novedad y el desafío son buenos para el cerebro»

___________________________________________

QUESTION. What do neu­ro­con­sul­tants do? What is their rela­tion­ship to education?

ANSWER. In recent years, inter­est in improv­ing brain capac­i­ty has begun to grow. Just as peo­ple want to be phys­i­cal­ly fit, they also care about being cog­ni­tive­ly fit. There is more and more talk of brain con­sul­tants or men­tal train­ers and there are more inter­ven­tions based on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty. This can be applied to help stu­dents learn more. For exam­ple, Arrow­smith School in Cana­da has a cog­ni­tive rein­force­ment pro­gram for stu­dents with spe­cial needs. Mind­ful­ness is also grow­ing a lot to reduce stress for chil­dren and teachers.

Q. You say that bilin­gual edu­ca­tion is a great ally of brain devel­op­ment in chil­dren. What does the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence show?

A. Bilin­gual­ism prac­ticed in a sus­tained way over time improves the exec­u­tive func­tions of the brain and helps to delay cog­ni­tive prob­lems such as Alzheimer’s. It does not pre­vent the pathol­o­gy, but it delays the appear­ance of its symp­toms by up to five years … The ben­e­fit of bilin­gual­ism comes from the fact that it forces to make a cog­ni­tive effort in real time that exer­cis­es the pre­frontal cor­tex of the brain. Neu­rons con­nect to each oth­er and those con­nec­tions become stronger. The more neu­rons and neur­al con­nec­tions we cre­ate, the more cog­ni­tive reserve we will have by retire­ment age and the longer it will take for the dis­ease to affect us. But it is not achieved only with learn­ing, but with con­stant prac­tice. In the US every­one wants to learn Chi­nese because it is said to be the lan­guage of the future, but the prob­lem is that it is not prac­ticed lat­er. It makes more sense to learn Span­ish, because there are more real options to use it.

Four hours a week of physical exercise during school hours

To enhance the “brain health” of students, he recommends that Spanish schools offer more sport time. The optimum would be three or four hours a week of aerobic exercise during school hours [there are usually two hours at most in Primary]. Physical exercise forces you to raise your heart rate and sends more oxygen to the brain, generating new neurons,” he says. And he proposes a program rotating six different sports in a year because “variety, novelty and challenge are good for the brain”

 

To read the full interview (in Spanish):

  • Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez: “La edu­cación bil­ingüe ayu­da a retrasar prob­le­mas cog­ni­tivos como el alzhéimer” (El Mundo)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Alzheimer, Arrowsmith, brain-development, cognitive effort, cognitive problems, cognitive-reserve, educación bilingüe, esfuerzo cognitivo, español, mindfulness, problemas cognitivos, reserva cognitiva, Spanish

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