Description:
Baum and Titone's Keynote Article is a welcome addition to the ongoing and flourishing study of the neurocognitive effects of bilingualism. By focusing their review on executive control in bilinguals from the perspectives of both aging and neuroplasticity in general they have broadened our thinking in useful ways. Because my own research has focused on the early stages of aging and bilingualism in preschool and school-age children, I have chosen to comment on their review with reference to these kinds of learners. I will also focus on the language acquisition part of this discussion because at the heart of the issue is how and to what extent acquisition of more than one language affects cognitive development. My comments reinforce what I believe are important observations in their review and simultaneously seek to extend their call to expand our frames of reference in research on bilinguals even further.