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Although the past 40 years have seen numerous studies documenting the superior language skills of girls, excelling in both their native tongue and foreign language learning, the biological mechanism behind this ability has puzzled scientists.
However, more recent research may have provided the answer and suggests that girls’ linguistic adeptness is the result of greater activity in girls of the brain areas used specifically for language encoding. These are the so called language areas which are involved in word meanings, the sounds of words, the spelling of words and their visual identification.
Boys on the other hand showed a lot of brain activity in those areas that are tied to more visual and auditory functions and are more sensory – their brain activity appeared to be confined to the left side of the brain.
This reliance on different brain areas for accurate language performance suggests that boys and girls are processing language information differently and the superior language ability of girls lies in the way they process words.