Bilingual Effects on Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Role of Language, Cultural Background, and Education
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A total of 104 six-year-old children belonging to 4 groups (English monolinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals, French-English bilinguals, Spanish-English bilinguals) were compared on 3 verbal tasks and 1 nonverbal executive control task to examine the generality of the bilingual effects on development. Bilingual groups differed in degree of similarity between languages, cultural background, and language of schooling. On the executive control task, all bilingual groups performed similarly and exceeded monolinguals; on the language tasks the best performance was achieved by bilingual children whose language of instruction was the same as the language of testing and whose languages had more overlap. Thus, executive control outcomes for bilingual children are general but performance on verbal tasks is specific to factors in the bilingual experience.
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A bilingual advantage in set-shifting has been reported for typically-developing children in studies using the DCCS task or adaptations.
“a bilingual advantage in set-shifting has been reported for typically-developing children in studies using the DCCS task previously discussed or adaptations thereof”
From Can Bilingualism Mitigate Set-Shifting Difficulties in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders? (2019) · cites this paper as Barac & Bialystok, 2012
Barac and Bialystok (2012) found that for mixed blocks, the three bilingual groups outperformed the monolingual group by exhibiting shorter reaction times.
“for mixed blocks (e.g., border version of the DCCS task) the three bilingual groups outperformed the monolingual group by exhibiting shorter RTs.”
From Can Bilingualism Mitigate Set-Shifting Difficulties in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders? (2019) · cites this paper as Barac & Bialystok, 2012
For DCCS reaction time switch cost, the main effect of language status was not significant.
“The main effect of language status, F(1, 33) = .46,p = .50,partial η 2 = .01,was not statistically significant, contrary to previous studies with TYP children (e.g., Barac & Bialystok, 2012).”
From Can Bilingualism Mitigate Set-Shifting Difficulties in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders? (2019) · cites this paper as Barac & Bialystok, 2012
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Can Bilingualism Mitigate Set-Shifting Difficulties in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders?
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- Authors
- Barac, R., & Bialystok, E.
- Affiliations
- York University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Bialystok, Ellen
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-03-01
- Volume
- 83
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 413-422
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- PMC
- PMC3305827
- OpenAlex
- W2115619901
- Cited by
- 448
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 44 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 34 · 2016: 37 · 2015: 36 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 59.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- europepmc.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD052523)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- bilingualism, cognitive development, language development, executive function, language of instruction, language similarity, cultural background, verbal tasks, bilingual children, language of testing, language transfer
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Child, Color Perception, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Discrimination, Psychological, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Language Development, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Ontario, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Psychometrics, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Reversal Learning, Verbal Learning, Vocabulary, Multilingualism, Executive Function
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