The 1992 Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers", the College Entrance Examination Board reported that students who averaged 4 or more years of foreign language study scored higher on the verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) than those who had studied 4 or more years in any other subject area.

Children in foreign language programs have tended to demonstrate greater cognitive development, creativity, and divergent thinking than monolingual children. Several studies show that people who are competent in more than one language outscore those who are speakers of only one language on tests of verbal and nonverbal intelligence.

Studies also show that learning another language enhances the academic skills of students by increasing their abilities in reading, writing, and mathematics. Studies of bilingual children made by child development scholars and linguists consistently show that these children grasp linguistic concepts such as words having several meanings faster and earlier than their monolingual counterparts.

Learning a second language does not cause language confusion, language delay or cognitive deficit, which have been concerns in the past. In fact, according to studies at the Cornell Language Acquisition Lab (CLAL), children who learn a second language can maintain attention despite outside stimuli better than children who know only one language.

That's important, say Barbara Lust, a developmental psychology and linguistics expert, professor of human development and director of CLAL, and her collaborator, Sujin Yang, former postdoctoral research associate at the lab, because that ability is "responsible for selective and conscious cognitive processes to achieve goals in the face of distraction and plays a key role in academic readiness and success in school settings."

In other words, "Cognitive advantages follow from becoming bilingual," Lust says. "These cognitive advantages can contribute to a child's future academic success."

It is impossible to understand the subtle nuances and deep meanings of another culture without knowing its language well.

Young children are inherently capable of learning the necessary phonemes, morphemes, and syntax as they mature.  In other words, they have a genetic propensity to learn language. 

Studies of average American children show that there is rapid learning of language in the early years of life.