Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:28:09.147Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language proficiency and executive control in bilingual children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2013

PERI ILUZ-COHEN  and
SHARON ARMON-LOTEM
PERI ILUZ-COHEN*
Affiliation:
Department of English, Bar-Ilan University
SHARON ARMON-LOTEM
Affiliation:
Department of English & Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University
*
Address for correspondence: Peri Iluz-Cohen, The Department of English, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel52900periilco@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The relation between language proficiency and executive functions has been established for monolingual children. The present study addresses this issue in bilingual children, comparing the language proficiency of sequential English–Hebrew bilingual preschool children as determined by standardized assessment instruments and generic executive control in inhibition, sorting and shifting tasks. Participants were recruited from regular and language preschools and classified according to their language proficiency as bilinguals with high language proficiency in at least one of their languages (including balanced bilinguals with high language proficiency in both languages, L2-dominant, and L1-dominant) and bilinguals showing low language proficiency in both languages. As reported for monolingual preschool children, positive relationships between language proficiency and inhibition and shifting abilities were found, with significantly lower performance among low language proficiency bilinguals. Significantly better performance was also found for shifting among children who had already mastered their L2 compared to those who were still in the process of acquiring the new language.

Keywords

bilingual childrenlanguage proficiencySpecific Language Impairmentexecutive functions
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 884 - 899
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The writing of this manuscript was partially supported by COST Action IS0804 “Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment” (www.bi-sli.org). The authors would like to thank members of COST Action IS0804 for valuable discussions, three anonymous reviewers for their most insightful comments, and Joel Walters for his endless support.

References

Abutalebi, J., & Green, D. W. (2007). Bilingual language production: The neurocognition of language representation and control. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20, 242–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, P. (2002). Assessment and development of executive function (EF) during childhood. Child Neuropsychology, 8, 71–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, A. D. (1996). Exploring the central executive. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A, 5–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bahrick, H. (1984). Semantic memory content in permastore: Fifty years of memory for Spanish learned in school. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bain, B. (1975). Toward an integration of Piaget and Vygotsky: Bilingual considerations. Linguistics, 16, 5–20.Google Scholar
Ben-Zeev, S. (1977). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive strategy and cognitive development. Child Development, 48, 1009–1018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1986). Factors in the growth of linguistic awareness. Child Development, 57, 498–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development, 70, 636–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2005). Consequences of bilingualism for cognitive development. In Kroll, J. R. & de Groot, A. M. B. (eds.), Handbook of bilingualism, pp. 417–432. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2007). Cognitive effects of bilingualism: How linguistic experience leads to cognitive change. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10, 210–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2008). Second-language acquisition and bilingualism at an early age and the impact on early cognitive development (revised edn.). In Tremblay, R. E., Barr, R. G. & Peters, R. D. (eds.), Encyclopedia on early childhood development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Execellence for Early Childhood Development; 1–4. http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/BialystokANGxp_rev.pdf (retrieved November 20, 2009).Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Craik, F. I. M., Klein, R., & Viswanathan, M. (2004). Bilingualism, aging, and cognitive control: Evidence from the Simon task. Psychology and Aging, 19, 290–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., & Martin, M. (2004). Attention and inhibition in bilingual children: Evidence from the dimensional change card sort task. Developmental Science, 7, 325–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E., & Ryan, E. B. (1985). Toward a definition of metalinguistic skills. Merill-Palmer Quarterly, 31, 229–251.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Senman, L. (2004). Executive processes in appearance–reality tasks: The role of inhibition of attention and symbolic representation. Child Development, 75, 562–579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bishop, D. V. M. (1992). The underlying nature of Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 3–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bishop, D. V. M., & Edmundson, A. (1987). Specific Language Impairment as a maturational lag: Evidence from longitudinal data on language and motor development. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 29, 442–459.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bishop, D. V. M., & Norbury, C. F. (2005). Executive functions in children with communication impairments, in relation to autistic symptomatology 2: Response inhibition. Autism, 9, 29–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, A. (1986). Forgetting foreign-language vocabulary. In Weltens, B., de Bot, K. & van Els, T. (eds.), Language attrition in progress, pp. 143–158. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Connell, P. J., & Stone, C. A. (1994). The conceptual basis for morpheme learning problems in children with Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 37, 389–398.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cook, V. (1997). The consequences of bilingualism for cognitive processing. In de Groot, A. M. B. & Kroll, J. F. (eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic persepectives, pp. 279–301. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Costa, A., Hrnández, M., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2008). Bilingualism aids conflict resolution: Evidence from the ANT task. Cognition, 106, 59–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, A., & Santesteban, M. (2004). Lexical access in bilingual speech production: Evidence from language switching in highly proficient bilinguals and L2 learners. Journal of memory and Language, 50, 491–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, H. K. (1995). Pragmatic impairments. In Fletcher, P. & MacWhinney, B. (eds.), The handbook of child language, pp. 623–640. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Craik, F., & Bialystok, E. (2005). Intelligence and executive control: Evidence from aging and bilingualism. Cortex, 41, 222–224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Avila, E. A., & Duncan, S. E. (1980). The language minority child: A psychological, linguistic, and social analysis. In Alatis, J. (ed.), Current issues in bilingual education, pp. 104–137. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, A. (2002). Normal development of prefrontal cortex from birth to young adulthood: Cognitive functions, anatomy, and biochemistry. In Stuss, D. T. & Knight, R. T. (eds.), Principles of frontal lobe function, pp. 466–503. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diaz, R. M. (1983). Thought and two languages: The impact of bilingualism on cognitive development. Review of Research in Education, 10, 23–54.Google Scholar
Dunn, L., & Dunn, L. (1981). The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Finneran, D. A., Francis, A. L., & Leonard, L. B. (2009). Sustained attention in children with Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 915–929.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gathercole, S. E., Pickering, S. J., Knight, C., & Stegmann, Z. (2004). Working memory skills and educational attainment: Evidence from national curriculum assessments at 7 and 14 years of age. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goetz, P. (2003). The effects of bilingualism on theory of mind development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 6, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goralnik, E. (1995). Goralnik Diagnostic Test for Hebrew. Matan, Even Yehuda. [In Hebrew]Google Scholar
Green, D. A., & Swets, J. A. (1966). Signal detection theory and psychophysics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Green, D. W. (1998). Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 67–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. (1989). Bilinguality and bilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, L., & Gillam, R. B. (2004). Verbal and spatial information processing constraints in children with Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 114–125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Iluz-Cohen, P. (2009). Language proficiency, language control and executive control in bilingual children. Poster presented at a conference on Bilingualism and Specific Language Impairment, Jerusalem, February.Google Scholar
Iluz-Cohen, P., & Walters, J. (2012). Telling stories in two languages: Narratives of bilingual preschool children with typical and impaired language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 58–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Im-Bolter, N., Johnson, J., & Pascual-Leone, J. (2006). Processing limitations in children with Specific Language Impairment: The role of executive function. Child Development, 6, 1822–1841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, R., Anderson, V., & Harvey, S. (2001). Concept Generation Test as a measure of conceptual reasoning skills in children: Examination of developmental trends. Clinical Neuropsychological Assessment, 2, 101–117.Google Scholar
Johnston, J. R. (1994). Cognitive abilities of children with language impairment. In Watkins, R. V. & Rice, M. L. (eds.), Communication and language intervention series (vol. 4): Specific language impairments in children, pp. 107–121. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.Google Scholar
Kiernan, B., Snow, D., Swisher, L., & Vance, R. (1997). Another look at nonverbal rule induction in children with SLI: Testing a flexible reconceptualization hypothesis. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 75–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohnert, K. (2004). Cognitive and cognate treatments for bilingual aphasia: A case study. Brain and Language, 91, 294–302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kohnert, K. (2010). Bilingual children with primary language impairment: issues, evidence and implications for clinical actions. Journal of Communication Disorders, 43, 456–473.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kohnert, K., & Windsor, J. (2004). The search for common ground, part II: Nonlinguistic performance by linguistically diverse learners. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 891–903.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kohnert, K., Windsor, J., & Ebert, K. D. (2009). Primary or “specific” language impairment and children learning a second language. Brain and Language, 109, 110–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kor, P. (1992). Where is the Mouse? Zmora Bitan, Tel Aviv. [In Hebrew]Google Scholar
Kovács, A. M., & Mehler, J. (2009). Flexible learning of multiple speech structures in bilingual infants. Science, 325, 611–612.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kray, J., Eber, J., & Lindenberger, U. (2004). Age differences in executive functioning across the lifespan: The role of verbalization in task preparation. Acta Psychoogia, 115, 143–165.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lahey, M., Edwards, J., & Munson, B. (2001). Is processing speed related to severity of language impairment? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 1354–1361.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leonard, L. B. (1998). Children with Specific Language Impairment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Leonard, L. B., Ellis Weismer, S., Miller, C. A., Francis, D. J., Tomblin, J. B., & Kail, R. V. (2007). Speed of processing, working memory, and language impairment in children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 408–428.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lezak, M. D., Howieson, D. B., & Loring, D. W. (2004). Neuropsychological assessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Luk, G. (2008). The anatomy of the bilingual influence on cognition: Levels of functional use and proficiency of language. Ph.D. dissertation, York University Toronto. ftp://ftp.rotman-baycrest.on.ca/pub/Gigi/Dissertation/ (accessed April 22, 2010).Google Scholar
Marton, K. (2008). Visuo-spatial and executive functions in children with Specific Language Impairment. International Journal of Communication Disorders, 43, 181–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, C., Kail, R., Leonard, L. B., & Tomblin, B. (2001). Speed of processing in children with Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 416–433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Montgomery, J. W. (2000). Relation in working memory to off-line and real-time sentence processing in children with Specific Language Impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 117–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, J. W. (2002). Understanding the language difficulties of children with Specific Language Impairment: Does verbal working memory matter? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 11, 77–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newcomer, P. L., & Hammill, D. D. (1997). Test of Language Development. Primary (3rd edn.) (TOLD-P:3). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.Google Scholar
Pascual-Leone, J. (1989). An organismic process model of Witkin's field-dependence-independence. In Globerson, T. & Zelniker, T. (eds.), Cognitive style and cognitive development, pp. 36–70. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1967). The child's conception of space. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Prior, A., & MacWhinney, B. (2009). A bilingual advantage in task-switching. Poster presented at Language, Brain and Communication Conference, Israel, January 4–5, 2009.Google Scholar
Prior, A., & MacWhinney, B. (2010). A bilingual advantage in task-switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 253–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rodriguez-Fornells, A., De Diego Balaguer, R., & Münte, T. F. (2006). Executive control in bilingual language processing. Language Learning, 56, 133–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sininger, Y., Klatzky, R., & Kirchner, D. (1989). Memory scanning speed in language-disordered children. Journal of Speech and Research, 32, 289–297.Google ScholarPubMed
Smidts, D. P., Jacobs, R., & Anderson, V. (2004). The object classification task for children (OCTC): A measure of concept generation and mental flexibility in early childhood. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26, 385–401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spaulding, T. J., Plante, E., & Vance, R. (2008). Sustained selective attention skills of preschool children with Specific Language Impairment: Evidence for separate attentional capacities. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51, 16–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Swisher, L., & Snow, D. (1994). Learning and generalization components of morphological acquisition by children with Specific Language Impairment: Is there a functional relation? Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 37, 1146–1413.Google Scholar
Ullman, M., & Pierpont, E. (2005). Specific Language Impairment is not specific to language: The procedural deficit hypothesis. Cortex, 41, 399–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van den Wildenberg, W. P. M., & Van der Molen, M. W. (2004). Developmental trends in simple and selective inhibition of compatible and incompatible responses. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87, 201–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walters, J. (1979). Language variation in the assessment of communicative competence. Occasional Papers in Linguistics, pp. 293–305. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University.Google Scholar
Walters, J. (2005). Bilingualism: The sociopragmatic–psycholinguistic interface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Wiig, E. H., Secord, W., & Semel, E. (1992). Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals – Preschool. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Wiig, E. H., Secord, W. A., & Semel, E. (2004). Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals – Preschool 2. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt/Psych Corp.Google Scholar
Windsor, J., & Hwang, M. (1999). Children's auditory lexical decisions. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 990–1002.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed