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Girls’ Brains Learn Languages Better
May 20, 2008 09:48 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
New research explains girls' superior language skills. The findings have added to a list of reports showing girls outstripping boys in education.
30-Second Summary
Although the past 40 years have seen numerous studies documenting the superior language skills of girls, the biological mechanism behind this ability has puzzled scientists.
However, new research suggests that girls’ linguistic adeptness is the result of greater activity in the brain areas used specifically for language encoding.
In comparison, when boys are faced with language tasks, they show a lot of activity in parts of the brain used for visual and auditory functions.
The study appears in this month’s issue of Neuropsychologia magazine.
The report could have practical applications in the classroom because it suggests that boys need to be taught language both visually and orally, while girls may be able to learn either way.
However, language isn’t the only area in which girls are excelling.
Another recent study shows that more girls participate in creative Internet activities such as blogging, posting pictures and creating Web sites.
“I’m not surprised because girls are very creative … sometimes more creative than men. We’re spunky,” podcast host and Web site creator Martina Butler told The New York Times.
But does all the positive attention on girls reflect negatively on boys? In 2006, the press published a number of stories about how boys were falling behind in school and college, calling it a national “boy crisis.”
However, while some newspapers and magazines ran front-page stories bemoaning the intellectual performance of American males, The Washington Post countered by arguing that the “academic freefall” being reported was “largely manufactured” by the media.
However, new research suggests that girls’ linguistic adeptness is the result of greater activity in the brain areas used specifically for language encoding.
In comparison, when boys are faced with language tasks, they show a lot of activity in parts of the brain used for visual and auditory functions.
The study appears in this month’s issue of Neuropsychologia magazine.
The report could have practical applications in the classroom because it suggests that boys need to be taught language both visually and orally, while girls may be able to learn either way.
However, language isn’t the only area in which girls are excelling.
Another recent study shows that more girls participate in creative Internet activities such as blogging, posting pictures and creating Web sites.
“I’m not surprised because girls are very creative … sometimes more creative than men. We’re spunky,” podcast host and Web site creator Martina Butler told The New York Times.
But does all the positive attention on girls reflect negatively on boys? In 2006, the press published a number of stories about how boys were falling behind in school and college, calling it a national “boy crisis.”
However, while some newspapers and magazines ran front-page stories bemoaning the intellectual performance of American males, The Washington Post countered by arguing that the “academic freefall” being reported was “largely manufactured” by the media.
Headline Links: ‘Are Women Really Better at Language?’
A new study shows that “girls completing a linguistic abilities task showed greater activity in brain areas implicated specifically in language encoding, which decipher information abstractly,” reports Scientific American. The research may finally reveal the biological reason behind why girls have superior language skills.
Source: Scientific American
The abstract of the original Neuropsychologia article is available for free online, but readers must pay to view the full article.
Source: Science Direct
Related Topics: Gender in the classroom, girls on the Web and boys in crisis
The idea of separating boys and girls is gaining momentum in American classrooms. At the Foley Intermediate School in Alabama, the fourth grade boys learn in a classroom that is painted blue and kept at 69 degrees, with a pet boa constrictor. The girls’ room, by contrast, is yellow and kept six degrees warmer.
Source: The New York Times Magazine
The Napa Valley Register reports that last year saw 39 percent of 11th grade boys score below basic or far below basic on California standardized English tests, compared with 27 percent of girls. The school system is focusing on raising test scores in English and is researching why girls score better than boys.
Source: The Napa Valley Register
An experiment in same sex classrooms taught teachers “a thing or two about the sexes” at an elementary school in Clearwater, Fla. They found that boys do better when given one direction at a time, and girls like to know all the steps before beginning a project. Despite research to the contrary, teachers discovered that single-gender education does not work better for every child.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
‘Girls rule the Internet’
Girls rule the Internet, according to The New York Times. A Pew study found that among Web users aged 12 to 17 years, more girls publish online content than boys. The study found that 35 percent of girls blog, compared to 20 percent of boys, and 32 percent of girls create their own Web sites, compared to 22 percent of boys. Despite this data, only 27 percent of adult women hold jobs in computer and mathematical occupations.
Source: The New York Times
“Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation” online according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project study used in the Times piece.
Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project
‘The Boy Crisis’
In 2006, various news outlets reported on a so-called “boy crisis” in American schools. The issue centered on reports that boys were falling behind in school and college. Education Sector, an independent education think tank, hosted a debate between educators and journalists. The audio is available on their Web site.
Source: Education Sector
The “boy crisis” idea was not entirely based in reality, according to The Washington Post: “The boy crisis we're hearing about is largely a manufactured one, the product of both a backlash against the women's movement and the media's penchant for continuously churning out news about the latest dire threat to the nation.”
Source: The Washington Post
Opinions & Analysis: Girls and boys could do better
In a Slate piece addressing the “boy crisis,” Ann Hulbert writes that the media should stop worrying so much about boys, considering it took girls so long to get where they are in the educational world. And, “in the meantime, both sexes—as international comparisons show—could stand to make more progress in math and verbal skills in our competitive global world.”
Source: Slate
Background: Language studies in years past
Language skills in young children have been studied for years. In 2006, a study found that boys and girls use different brain functions when they make grammatical mistakes. “Girls mainly use a system that is for memorizing words and associations between them, whereas boys rely primarily on a system that governs the rules of language,” Science Daily reports.
Source: Science Daily
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