Cardinal limits: Evidence from language awareness and bilingualism for developing concepts of number

The study presented here investigated children's acquisition of cardinality in terms of a framework that isolates two cognitive processing components previously shown to be involved in children's metalinguistic development. These components are called analysis of knowledge and control of processing. In Study 1, children from 3 to 5 years of age were asked to solve three problems that required an understanding of cardinality. The problems were designed to place different demands on these processing components and examine their involvement in specific problems. In Study 2, bilingual children were given two of the problems to compare their performance to a new group of monolinguals. The results from both studies contribute to our knowledge of the development of cardinality by assessing children's ability across several tasks, by classifying those tasks in terms of their reliance on distinct processing components, and by providing a means for relating children's development of number concepts to their development of language. The results also contribute to our knowledge of the cognitive abilities of bilingual children. The implications of these results are that aspects of symbolic development may be a broadly based process that extends beyond domain-specific boundaries.     

Bilingual experience and executive functioning in young children

Advanced inhibitory control skills have been found in bilingual speakers as compared to monolingual controls (Bialystok, 1999). We examined whether this effect is generalized to an unstudied language group (Spanish-English bilingual) and multiple measures of executive function by administering a battery of tasks to 50 kindergarten children drawn from three language groups: native bilinguals, monolinguals (English), and English speakers enrolled in second-language immersion kindergarten. Despite having significantly lower verbal scores and parent education/income level, Spanish-English bilingual children's raw scores did not differ from their peers. After statistically controlling for these factors and age, native bilingual children performed significantly better on the executive function battery than both other groups. Importantly, the relative advantage was significant for tasks that appear to call for managing conflicting attentional demands (Conflict tasks); there was no advantage on impulse-control (Delay tasks). These results advance our understanding of both the generalizability and specificity of the compensatory effects of bilingual experience for children's cognitive development.     

The missing explanation of the false‐belief advantage in bilingual children: a longitudinal study

Bilingual preschoolers often perform better than monolingual children on false‐belief understanding. It has been hypothesized that this is due to their enhanced executive function skills, although this relationship has rarely been tested or supported. The current longitudinal study tested whether metalinguistic awareness was responsible for this advantage. Further, we examined the contributions of both executive functioning and language ability to false‐belief understanding by including multiple measures of both. Seventy‐eight children (n = 40 Spanish‐English bilingual; age M = 49.29, SD = 7.38 and, n = 38 English monolingual; age M = 47.75, SD = 6.86) were tested. A year later the children were tested again (n = 22 bilingual, n = 25 monolingual). The results indicated that language and executive function (inhibitory control) at time 1 were related to false belief in monolinguals at time 2. In contrast, bilinguals' metalinguistic performance at time 1 was the sole predictor of false belief at time 2. The different linguistic and cognitive profiles of monolinguals and bilinguals may create different pathways for their development of false‐belief understanding. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/vILn2gKjFxw     

Coordination of executive functions in monolingual and bilingual children

Two groups of 8-year-old children who were monolingual or bilingual completed a complex classification task in which they made semantic judgments on stimuli that were presented either visually or auditorily. The task requires coordinating a variety of executive control components, specifically working memory, inhibition, and shifting. When each of the visual and auditory tasks was presented alone, performance was comparable for children in the two groups. Combining the two modalities into a dual-task paradigm made the task more difficult, and on this combined task bilingual children maintained better accuracy than monolingual children, especially on the visual task. The results are interpreted in terms of the enhanced ability of bilingual children to coordinate the executive control components required in performing this complex task.     

A Comparative Study of Shifting Ability,Inhibitory Control and Working Memory in Monolingual and Bilingual Children

It is now well documented that the linguistic development of bilingual children is, in many respects, different from that of their monolingual peers. Yet, there is substantial evidence in cognitive psychology that the effect of bilingualism is not merely restricted to the linguistic competence of individuals. Recent literature on bilingualism suggests that certain aspects of children’s cognitive development can be positively affected by the bilingual experience. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential effects of bilingual experience on young children’s executive processing. A total of 67 preschool children belonging to two groups including 36 Persian–Turkish bilingual children and 31 Persian monolingual children participated in the study. They were matched for their verbal proficiency and then were compared on three executive function tasks including shifting ability, inhibitory control and working memory. Results showed that bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on both shifting and inhibitory control tasks. However, both groups performed similarly on working memory tasks. The findings are interpreted in terms of the enhanced ability of bilingual children in various executive functions processing.     

The effects of bilingualism on toddlers' executive functioning

Bilingual children have been shown to outperform monolingual children on tasks measuring executive functioning skills. This advantage is usually attributed to bilinguals’ extensive practice in exercising selective attention and cognitive flexibility during language use because both languages are active when one of them is being used. We examined whether this advantage is observed in 24-month-olds who have had much less experience in language production. A battery of executive functioning tasks and the cognitive scale of the Bayley test were administered to 63 monolingual and bilingual children. Native bilingual children performed significantly better than monolingual children on the Stroop task, with no difference between groups on the other tasks, confirming the specificity of bilingual effects to conflict tasks reported in older children. These results demonstrate that bilingual advantages in executive control emerge at an age not previously shown.     

Executive control in a modified antisaccade task: Effects of aging and bilingualism

Two studies are reported that assess differences associated with aging and bilingualism in an executive control task. Previous work has suggested that bilinguals have an advantage over monolinguals in nonlinguistic tasks involving executive control; the major purpose of the present article is to ascertain which aspects of control are sensitive to the bilingual experience. Study 1 used an antisaccade task and found no effects of aging or bilingualism. Study 2 used the identical visual display but coupled to keypress responses. The results showed that bilinguals resolved various types of response conflict faster than monolinguals and that this bilingual advantage generally increased with age. A speculative interpretation of this pattern of results is offered in conclusion.     

Independent effects of bilingualism and socioeconomic status on language ability and executive functioning

One hundred and seventy-five children who were 6-years old were assigned to one of four groups that differed in socioeconomic status (SES; working class or middle class) and language background (monolingual or bilingual). The children completed tests of nonverbal intelligence, language tests assessing receptive vocabulary and attention based on picture naming, and two tests of executive functioning. All children performed equivalently on the basic intelligence tests, but performance on the language and executive functioning tasks was influenced by both SES and bilingualism. Middle-class children outperformed working-class children on all measures, and bilingual children obtained lower scores than monolingual children on language tests but higher scores than monolingual children on the executive functioning tasks. There were no interactions with either group factors or task factors. Thus, each of SES and bilingualism contribute significantly and independently to children’s development irrespective of the child’s level on the other factor.     

Bilingual advantage,bidialectal advantage or neither? Comparing performance across three tests of executive function in middle childhood

When bilinguals speak, both fluent language systems become activated in parallel and exert an influence on speech production. As a consequence of maintaining separation between the two linguistic systems, bilinguals are purported to develop enhanced executive control functioning. Like bilinguals, individuals who speak two dialects must also maintain separation between two linguistic systems, albeit to a lesser degree. Across three tests of executive function, we compared bilingual and bidialectal children's performance to that of a monolingual control group. No evidence for a bidialectal advantage was found. However, in line with a growing number of recent partial and failed replications, we observed a significant bilingual advantage only in one measure in one task. This calls the robustness of the bilingual advantage into question. A comprehensive review of studies investigating advantages of inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility in bilingual children reveals that the bilingual advantage is likely to be both task and sample specific, and the interaction between these factors makes qualification of the effect challenging. These findings highlight the importance of tracking the impact of dual linguistic systems across the lifespan using tasks calibrated for difficulty across different ages.     

Metalinguistic development in French learners enrolled in an immersion programme: A longitudinal study

Research on bilingualism has shown a bilingual advantage in phonological and syntactic awareness, and more recently on some morphological awareness tasks in children who had acquired two languages simultaneously. However, there is still limited knowledge about this advantage in students who acquire a second language in school after having developed a first language. The present longitudinal study addressed this issue by comparing, over the first two years of primary school, the development of metalinguistic abilities in 33 French learners enrolled in an immersion French–German programme to that of 43 French monolingual peers. Results support the bilingual advantage and add to the growing body of research reaching the same conclusion. In this study, this advantage appears as early as in first grade and the gap favouring second language learners widens with time. The results are discussed in light of differences between the characteristics of the two languages.     

Trait and state anxiety: Relations to executive functioning in an at-risk sample

Prior research with adults suggests mixed evidence for the relations of state and trait anxiety to prefrontal executive functions (EF). Trait anxiety is hypothesised to impair the efficiency of prefrontal areas and goal-directed attention and has been largely associated with poorer performance on executive functioning tasks. Fewer studies have investigated state anxiety, and the findings have been mixed. As studies of these processes in children have been limited by small sample sizes and a focus on working memory, we examine whether state and trait anxiety are associated with performance on two EF tasks in a sample of urban, low-income children, ages 9–12. Results indicated that higher trait anxiety predicted lower executive functioning on both tasks. In addition, higher state anxiety was related to better performance on the Stroop task. Results demonstrate that, consistent with the adult literature, higher trait anxiety is related to lower executive functioning in children.     

Executive control in older Welsh monolinguals and bilinguals

Evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive control has led to the suggestion that being bilingual might protect against late-life cognitive decline. We assessed the performance of socially homogeneous groups of older (≥60 years) bilingual Welsh/English (n?=?50) and monolingual English (n?=?49) speakers on a range of executive control tasks yielding 17 indices for comparison. Effect sizes (>.2) favoured monolinguals on 10 indices, with negligible differences observed on the remaining 7 indices. Univariate analyses indicated that monolinguals performed significantly better on 2 of 17 indices. Multivariate analysis indicated no significant overall differences between the two groups in performance on executive tasks. Older Welsh bilinguals do not show a bilingual advantage in executive control, and where differences are observed, these tend to favour monolinguals. A possible explanation may lie in the nature of the socio-linguistic context and its influence on cognitive processing in the bilingual group.     

Phonological awareness, executive functioning, and theory of mind

Language plays a critical role in theory of mind (ToM) development, particularly the understanding of false beliefs (FB). Further, there is some evidence that the development of FB is important for metalinguistic development, such as the understanding of homonyms and synonyms. However, there is debate regarding the nature of this relationship. This study explored the role of ToM, including FB, understanding and executive function in another aspect of metalinguistic development involving phonological awareness, specifically rhyming. Of interest was the relative role of ToM and executive function, particularly inhibitory control, in children's ability to identify rhymes. Two studies of 4-year-olds demonstrated that ToM understanding was primarily associated with rhyming ability, whereas inhibitory control was not independently related. Results are discussed in terms of children's ability to flexibly shift between different perspectives, by bracketing one perspective and focusing on the other, in both metalinguistic and ToM tasks.     

Language proficiency and executive control in proactive interference: evidence from monolingual and bilingual children and adults

Two studies are reported in which monolingual and bilingual children (Study 1) and adults (Study 2) completed a memory task involving proactive interference. In both cases, the bilinguals attained lower scores on a vocabulary test than monolinguals but performed the same on the proactive interference task. For the children, bilinguals made fewer intrusions from previous lists even though they recalled the same number of words. For the adults, bilinguals recalled more words than monolinguals when the scores were corrected for differences in vocabulary. In addition, there was a strong effect of vocabulary in which higher vocabulary participants recalled more words irrespective of language group. These results point to the important role of vocabulary in verbal performance and memory. They also suggest that bilinguals may compensate for weaker language proficiency with their greater executive control to achieve the same or better levels of performance as monolinguals.     

How bilingual experience and executive control influence development in language control among bilingual children

This longitudinal study investigates whether the development in executive control and bilingual experience predicts change in language control in bilingual children. Children were tested twice over the course of 1 year, using the language‐switching paradigm and the Simon task. The participants were Japanese‐English bilingual “returnee” children (ages 7–13), who returned to their first language (L1) environment after spending some years in a second language (L2) dominant environment. Testing these children upon their return to the L1 environment allowed us to disentangle the effect of age from bilingual experience, as they experienced an increase in age but a decrease in L2 exposure over time. Children who had less L2 exposure showed smaller improvement in baseline performance when naming pictures in English (i.e., when English was relevant across all trials). Moreover, development in trials where children had to switch between languages were modulated by development in executive control. That is, children who increased their performance in the English mixed repetition trials also performed better on the executive control task over time. Thus, development in executive control modulated change in language control among bilingual children, suggesting a positive relationship between language control and executive control in children's development.     

Word Mapping and Executive Functioning in Young Monolingual and Bilingual Children

The effect of bilingualism on the cognitive skills of young children was investigated by comparing performance of 162 children who belonged to one of two age groups (approximately 3- and 4.5-year-olds) and one of three language groups on a series of tasks examining executive control and word mapping. The children were monolingual English speakers, monolingual French speakers, or bilinguals who spoke English and one of a large number of other languages. Monolinguals obtained higher scores than bilinguals on a receptive vocabulary test and were more likely to demonstrate the mutual exclusivity constraint, especially at the younger ages. However, bilinguals obtained higher scores than both groups of monolinguals on three tests of executive functioning: Luria's tapping task measuring response inhibition, the opposite worlds task requiring children to assign incongruent labels to a sequence of animal pictures, and reverse categorization in which children needed to reclassify a set of objects into incongruent categories after an initial classification. There were no differences between the groups in the attentional networks flanker task requiring executive control to ignore a misleading cue. This evidence for a bilingual advantage in aspects of executive functioning at an earlier age than previously reported is discussed in terms of the possibility that bilingual language production may not be the only source of these developmental effects.     

Theory of Mind and Executive Functions in Young Bilingual Children

Few studies have explored the relationship between theory of mind (ToM), executive function (EF), and bilingualism at the same time. In this study 14 young bilingual children were compared with monolingual children on a test battery composed of 5 ToM tests, 5 EF tests, and 1 test of general language ability. The result showed that despite significantly lower verbal ability, the bilingual children outperformed the monolingual ones on tests of EF. There were no differences in ToM performance. The authors argue that there is a strong relationship between bilingualism and EF, but, contrary to results from earlier studies, they could not find any relationship between bilingualism and ToM. EF did not predict ToM performance. Lack of a significant relationship could be due to the children's young age and consequently their low scores on the ToM tasks.     

Metalinguistic awareness and language development

Thirty-six 3- and 4-year-old children were given a battery of six metalinguistic tasks and two measures of language development: the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and a sentence comprehension test. The results clearly showed that the majority of preschoolers were able to make at least some metalinguistic judgments, and that metalinguistic performance improved with age. Furthermore, overall performance on the metalinguistic tasks was significantly correlated with each language measure when the effects of age were partialed out. In contrast, the correlation between age and metalinguistic performance was not significant once the effects of both language measures were partialed out. These data demonstrate that preschoolers' metalinguistic abilities are more extensive than has been previously acknowledged, and that they are closely tied to other aspects of language development at this time.     

Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: evidence from the Simon task

Previous work has shown that bilingualism is associated with more effective controlled processing in children; the assumption is that the constant management of 2 competing languages enhances executive functions (E. Bialystok, 2001). The present research attempted to determine whether this bilingual advantage persists for adults and whether bilingualism attenuates the negative effects of aging on cognitive control in older adults. Three studies are reported that compared the performance of monolingual and bilingual middle-aged and older adults on the Simon task. Bilingualism was associated with smaller Simon effect costs for both age groups; bilingual participants also responded more rapidly to conditions that placed greater demands on working memory. In all cases the bilingual advantage was greater for older participants. It appears, therefore, that controlled processing is carried out more effectively by bilinguals and that bilingualism helps to offset age-related losses in certain executive processes.