Associations between bilingualism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related behavior in a community sample of primary school children

Abstract

It has been found that bilinguals and children from minority backgrounds lag behind monolinguals or those in the majority culture, with respect to prevalence, assessment, and treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This suggests that bilingualism might be yet another factor giving rise to variability in ADHD. Using regression methods, we analyzed parent reports for 394 primary school-age children on background and language experience, ADHD-related behavior, and structural language skill in English to explore whether bilingualism is associated with levels of ADHD-related behavior. Bilingualism as a category was associated with slightly lower levels of ADHD-related behavior. Bilingualism as a continuous measure showed a trend of being associated with lower levels, but this did not quite reach significance. Structural language skill in English was the main predictor of levels of ADHD-related behavior; higher skill predicting lower levels. More investigation is required to confirm whether these effects occur across different populations, to understand which, if any, aspects of bilingualism give rise to variability, and if need be, to address these as far as possible.

The effects of bilingualism on cognition and behaviour in individuals with attention deficits: A scoping review

“…Most studies used maternal education (Toppelberg et al, 2002;Sorge et al, 2017;Goh et al, 2020) or average number of parental years of schooling (Mor et al, 2015) as proxy for SES. Only two studies operationalized SES as a combination of affluence and parental education (Sharma, 2019;Sharma et al, 2022). The participating children in Chung-Fat-Yim et al…”

“…The included studies can be divided into two groups based on their outcome variables. Six studies measured cognitive abilities related to executive function (Mor et al, 2015;Sorge et al, 2017;Sharma, 2019;Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2020;Hardy et al, 2021), while four studies looked at levels of attention problems (Toppelberg et al, 2002), ADHD-related behavioural symptoms (Sharma, 2019;Sharma et al, 2022) or the odds of receiving an ADHD diagnosis (Goh et al, 2020). The findings for these two groups of studies will be presented separately below.…”

“…The most common analysis method was (stepwise) linear regression models, inputting control variables sequentially, with language status (categorical) or language ability (continuous) entered last. Separate regressions were run for each dependent variable, whether that be levels of ADHD symptoms/attention difficulties, or executive function measures (Sorge et al, 2017;Sharma, 2019;Chung-Fat-Yim et al, 2020;Hardy et al, 2021;Sharma et al, 2022). None of these studies reported the inclusion of random effects such as random intercepts or random slopes into the models.…”

“…Important to note is that the "monolinguals" in this study were highly proficient in both Hebrew and English, while the "bilinguals" spoke an additional third language. Three studies (Sorge et al, 2017;Sharma, 2019;Sharma et al, 2022) analysed bilingualism as both categorical (monolingual vs. multilingual) and continuous factor (within their bilingual samples). Sharma (2019) and Sharma et al (2022) used a language and family background questionnaire based on the Alberta Language Environment Questionnaire (ALEQ; Paradis, 2011).…”

“…Three studies (Sorge et al, 2017;Sharma, 2019;Sharma et al, 2022) analysed bilingualism as both categorical (monolingual vs. multilingual) and continuous factor (within their bilingual samples). Sharma (2019) and Sharma et al (2022) used a language and family background questionnaire based on the Alberta Language Environment Questionnaire (ALEQ; Paradis, 2011). Children of caregivers who indicated their child as bilingual were categorised as bilingual.…”