There are some interesting research efforts that explore the link between early-age bilingual learners and positive cognitive effects [1].
What is striking to me is that hackers have long made statements that learning different programming language paradigms makes us better hackers. While we can make anecdotal arguments that being a good functional and a good imperative programmer makes us better hackers in general, the above research is exploring the idea that multi-language proficiency has positive cognitive effects that cross domains.
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There are some interesting research efforts that explore the link between early-age bilingual learners and positive cognitive effects [1].
What is striking to me is that hackers have long made statements that learning different programming language paradigms makes us better hackers. While we can make anecdotal arguments that being a good functional and a good imperative programmer makes us better hackers in general, the above research is exploring the idea that multi-language proficiency has positive cognitive effects that cross domains.
[1] Carlson S. M. & Meltzoff A. N. (2008). Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children. Developmental Science, 11, 282–298. Availabe at http://ilabs.washington.edu/meltzoff/pdf/08Carlson_Meltzoff_...