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The ability to speak two or more languages at a native or near native level is an impressive feat to say the least and is not yet well understood by cognitive neuroscience. Bilinguals who use more than one language in their daily life must switch between their various languages and continuously inhibit the language not in use. The neural pathways that are associated with language processing ingeneral have been well identified within the field for some time. Whether or not these are the same areas used by both bilinguals and monolinguals or for different languages within a bilingual individual is yet to be determined, though. The general consensus at this point for researchers studying this topic seems to be that multilingualism utilizes a separate but overlapping neural system comparedto monolingual language processing. Differences between neural activation associated with language processing in bilinguals and monolinguals have been shown to be affected by a number of factors, such as age of acquisition of the second language (L2) and the morphosyntactic differences or similarities between multiple language representations. In general, classic language areas such as Broca’s andWernicke’s areas appear to be activated in individuals regardless of their knowledge of more than one language but the degree and extent of activation is modulated by the presence of an L2.

One finding that is quite common among work on this topic is early acquisition of L2 results in observable differences from both a behavioral and neurological standpoint when compared to individuals wholearned their second language later in development. It is proposed that this effect is due to the presence of critical periods for language acquisition (Pettito, 2002). Failing to be exposed to language after such a period results in an inability to acquire native-level proficiency. This effect is thought to be due to changing rates of brain maturation at different points during development. At theage of six to eight months old, babies can differentiate between essentially all phonemes used in human speech. Sebastian-Galles (2006) examined the abilities of Japanese and American babies to differentiate between the English /l/ and /r/ phonemes, two English sounds that traditionally give Japanese individuals difficulty differentiating. Babies were conditioned to turn their head towards a toywhen there was a change between sounds in a continuous stream of background syllables. During the first test, when the babies were six to eight months old, both groups of infants responded similarly to the change in phoneme. At the time of second testing, the babies were ten to twelve months old. At this age, American babies had improved significantly in the rate of their successful discriminationwhile Japanese babies decreased significantly in their ability to discriminate between the two sounds. In other words, although both groups were similarly responsive to phoneme differences prior to being a year old, changes in phonological perception can be observed extremely early in development. These findings indicate a focus on and perceptual enhancement of sounds found one’s native language.This points to the fact that age of first exposure to a language has an effect on the ability of an individual to discriminate between sounds in that language. Native-level discrimination abilities might only achieved when one is exposed to L2 from a very early age.
It seems plausible then, that simultaneous exposure from this early age to more than one language might impair discriminationbetween languages. This does not appear to be the case, though. Bosch and Sebastián –Gallés (2001) tested the effect of language switching on the behavioral responses of 4-month old monolingual and bilingual infants. Infants were either exposed to exclusively Catalan or Spanish or both Catalan and Spanish equally. Both groups were familiarized with a tape-recorded passage by repeated presentation and...