scholarly journals The relationship between language proficiency and attentional control in Cantonese-English bilingual children: evidence from Simon, Simon switching, and working memory tasks

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi-Shing Tse ◽  
Jeanette Altarriba
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
The Relationship

High proficiency across two languages is related to better mental state reasoning for bilingual children

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 407-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE R. GORDON
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Preschool Age Children ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTPast research suggests that bilingualism positively affects children's performance in false belief tasks. However, researchers have yet to fully explore factors that are related to better performance in these tasks within bilingual groups. The current study includes an assessment of proficiency in both languages (which was lacking in past work) and investigates the relationship between proficiency and performance in a variety of mental state tasks (not just false belief). Furthermore, it explores whether the relationship between language proficiency and performance in mental state tasks differs between bilingual and monolingual groups. Twenty-six Spanish–English bilingual and twenty-six English monolingual preschool-age children completed seven mental state tasks. Findings provide evidence that high proficiency in English is related to better performance in mental state tasks for monolinguals. In contrast, high proficiency in both English and Spanish is related to better performance in mental state tasks for bilinguals.

scholarly journals Attentional Fluctuations, Cognitive Flexibility, and Bilingualism in Kindergarteners

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie L. Haft ◽  
Olga Kepinska ◽  
Jocelyn N. Caballero ◽  
Manuel Carreiras ◽  
Fumiko Hoeft
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Flexibility ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Kindergarten Children ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Memory And Attention ◽  
Confounding Variables ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
The Relationship

The idea of a bilingual advantage in aspects of cognitive control—including cognitive flexibility, inhibition, working memory, and attention—is disputed. Using a sample of kindergarten children, the present study investigated associations between bilingualism and cognitive flexibility—a relationship that has shown mixed findings in prior literature. We also extend prior work by exploring relationships between bilingualism and attentional fluctuations, which represent consistency in attentional control and contribute to cognitive performance. To our knowledge, no previous study has explored this association. Theoretically, attentional fluctuations might mediate or moderate the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive flexibility. However, given evidence of null findings from extant literature when confounding variables are adequately controlled and tasks are standardized, we did not expect to find a bilingual advantage in either cognitive flexibility or attentional fluctuations. Our results supported this hypothesis when considering bilingualism both continuously and categorically. The importance of expanding upon mechanistic accounts connecting bilingualism to cognitive improvements is discussed.

Code-switching does not predict Executive Function performance in proficient bilingual children: Bilingualism does

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 366-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARISSA KANG ◽  
BARBARA LUST
Keyword(s):  
Executive Function ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Task Switching ◽  
Stroop Task ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Proficiency Tests ◽  
Semantic Fluency ◽  
The Relationship

Previous studies of bilingual adults have suggested that bilinguals’ experience with code-switching (CS) contributes to superior executive function (EF) abilities. We tested a highly bilingual developing population in Singapore, a multilingual country where CS occurs pervasively. We obtained CS and EF measures from 43 English–Chinese 8-year-old children (27 females, M = 100 months). We measured spontaneous CS with a novel task and EF in terms of task-switching (Semantic Fluency) and inhibitory control (Stroop task in both languages). Contrary to previous work, CS performance did not significantly predict EF performance in either case. Rather, bilingual language proficiency, i.e., degree of bilingualism (as measured by direct proficiency tests and parents’ estimates of daily language use and exposure of both languages) influenced EF performance. Accordingly, the relationship between CS and EF may be more indirect and non-necessary than previously assumed.

scholarly journals Cognitive Mechanisms of Monolingual and Bilingual Children in Monoliterate Educational Settings: Evidence From Sentence Repetition

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Andreou ◽  
Ianthi Maria Tsimpli ◽  
Elvira Masoura ◽  
Eleni Agathopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Educational Setting ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Sentence Repetition

Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been extensively employed to assess bilingual children’s linguistic and cognitive resources. The present study examined whether monoliterate bilingual children differ from their monolingual (and monoliterate) peers in SR accuracy and cognitive tasks, and investigated links between vocabulary, updating, verbal and visuospatial working memory and SR performance in the same children. Participants were two groups of 35 children, 8–12 years of age: one group consisted of Albanian-Greek monoliterate bilingual children and the other of Greek monolingual children attending a monolingual-Greek educational setting. The findings demonstrate that the two groups performed similarly in the grammaticality scores of the SR. However, monolinguals outperformed the monoliterate bilinguals in SR accuracy, as well as in the visuospatial working memory and updating tasks. The findings did not indicate any bilingual advantage in cognitive performance. The results also demonstrate that updating and visuospatial working memory significantly predicted monolingual children’s SR accuracy scores, whereas Greek vocabulary predicted the performance of our monoliterate bilingual children in the same task. We attribute this outcome to the fact that monoliterate bilingual children do not rely on their fluid cognitive resources to perform the task, but instead rely on language proficiency (indicated by expressive vocabulary) while performing the SR.

scholarly journals Academic discourse: Dissociating standardized and conversational measures of language proficiency in bilingual kindergarteners

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN F. PEETS ◽  
ELLEN BIALYSTOK
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Second Language Proficiency ◽  
Standardized Measures ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTThis study examined the relationship between performance on standardized measures of language proficiency and conversational measures of the same features used in academic discourse among 24 monolingual and 25 bilingual kindergarteners. Academic discourse performance was considered for both its linguistic and its genre features in two discourse forms: narrative and explanation. Bilinguals performed more poorly than monolinguals on standardized measures of language proficiency, yet they performed similarly to monolinguals in the discourse-based linguistic and genre features. Moreover, genre features were more strongly related to linguistic features assessed through discourse than to standardized tests of these same features. These findings indicate that standardized measures of language proficiency underrepresent the abilities of bilingual children and that children's second language proficiency may be more accurately reflected in conversation.

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