The Bilingual Advantage in Children’s Executive Functioning Is Not Related to Language Status: A Meta-Analytic Review

Lowe, Cassandra J.; Cho, Isu; Goldsmith, Samantha F.; Morton, J. Bruce

doi:10.1177/0956797621993108

Cited by 72 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 156 publications

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“…The main goal of the present study was to determine whether monolingual and bilingual infants differed in their performance on executive functioning skills, that have been reported to be stronger in older bilingual children. Given that a bilingual cognitive advantage has been often reported in young children (but see Lowe et al, 2021), bilinguals were expected to outperform monolinguals on measures of cognitive flexibility (Adesope et al, 2010; Adi-Japha et al, 2010; Bialystok, 2017; Brito et al, 2020; Crivello et al, 2016; Comishen et al, 2019; Poulin-Dubois et al, 2011). More specifically, we hypothesized that bilingual toddlers would outperform monolinguals on tasks involving conflict resolution and shifting.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Importantly, a wide range of tasks measuring executive skills were used (e.g., card sorting, Simon task, Stroop, ANT), and the groups were carefully matched on variables such SES and IQ. A recent meta-analysis conducted on 10,937 bilingual and 12,477 monolingual participants between the ages of 3 and 17 years concluded that the available evidence suggests that the bilingual advantage in children's executive functioning is small, variable, and potentially not attributable to the effect of language status (Lowe, Cho, Goldsmith & Morton, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of bilingualism on infants’ cognitive flexibility

et al. 2021

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Research suggests that bilinguals often outperform monolinguals on tasks that tap into executive functions, such as those requiring conflict resolution and cognitive flexibility. Recently, better attentional control has been detected in infants as young as 6 months, thereby providing a possible basis for a cognitive benefit before language production. The goal of the present study was to examine if cognitive flexibility is more advanced in bilingual infants. A detour reaching task assessing conflict resolution, a delayed response task assessing shifting, and a multiple location task assessing maintaining, were administered to 17-month-old infants. The main findings revealed that being bilingual did not improve performance on any of the executive function tasks. Furthermore, current exposure to a second language or language proficiency did not impact executive functioning. We conclude that a bilingual advantage in cognitive flexibility may not be present before children have enough experience in code switching.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of bilingualism on infants’ cognitive flexibility

et al. 2021

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“…Gade et al, 2021). This apparent scarcity of metaanalyses in the bilingual language control literature contrasts with the growing number of meta-analyses in other areas of bilingualism research (e.g., the bilingual advantage; Donnelly et al, 2019;Gunnerud et al, 2020;Lehtonen et al, 2018;Lowe et al, 2021;Ware et al, 2020) and also the increase in large-scale studies (e.g., Dick et al, 2019;Nichols et al, 2020). As our systematic review of the four major inhibitory phenomena has shown, however, we lack empirical clarity to some degree in this research area, so that additional meta-analyses and more large-scale studies would be very beneficial for future progress in the field of bilingual language control.…”

Section: Requirements Of a Bilingual Inhibitory Control Markermentioning

confidence: 96%

The concept of inhibition in bilingual control.

Declerck¹,

Koch²

2023

Psychological Review

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To achieve fluent language processing as a bilingual, a dominant theoretical framework assumes that the nontarget language is inhibited. This assumption is based on several empirical effects that are typically explained with inhibitory control. In the current article, we discuss four prominent effects linked to bilingual inhibition in language production (i.e., asymmetrical switch costs, n−2 language repetition costs, reversed language dominance, and the blocked language order effect). We argue that these effects require more empirical examination in order to arrive at a firmer basis for the assumption that inhibition plays a major role during bilingual language control. In particular, the empirical replicability of the phenomena themselves needs to be established more firmly, the underlying theoretical assumptions need further examination, and the alternative explanations of the empirical effects need to be scrutinized. In turn, we conclude that inhibitory control may provide a coherent framework for bilingual language production while outlining the challenges that the inhibition account still needs to face.

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“…Some studies comparing groups based on these categorical designations have reported that bilinguals performed more accurately or faster than monolinguals on various cognitive tasks and measures, especially those related to executive functioning, whereas other studies found no differences between groups (summary in Antoniou, 2019 ). Both conclusions have been supported by meta-analyses that either confirm the reliability of the group difference (Adesope et al, 2010 ; Grundy and Timmer, 2017 ; van den Noort et al, 2019 ; Grundy, 2020 ; Ware et al, 2020 ; Monnier et al, 2021 ) or fail to reject the null hypothesis (de Bruin et al, 2015 ; Lehtonen et al, 2018 ; Donnelly et al, 2019 ; Lowe et al, 2021 ). One factor contributing to these conflicting results is the definition of “bilingualism” and how participants are assigned to groups in various studies (for discussion see Bak, 2016 ; Bialystok, 2016 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

What Is a Language? Who Is Bilingual? Perceptions Underlying Self-Assessment in Studies of Bilingualism

2022

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Research on the cognitive consequences of bilingualism typically proceeds by labeling participants as “monolingual” or “bilingual” and comparing performance on some measures across these groups. It is well-known that this approach has led to inconsistent results. However, the approach assumes that there are clear criteria to designate individuals as monolingual or bilingual, and more fundamentally, to determine whether a communication system counts as a unique language. Both of these assumptions may not be correct. The problem is particularly acute when participants are asked to classify themselves or simply report how many languages they speak. Participants' responses to these questions are shaped by their personal perceptions of the criteria for making these judgments. This study investigated the perceptions underlying judgments of bilingualism by asking 528 participants to judge the extent to which a description of a fictional linguistic system constitutes a unique language and the extent to which a description of a fictional individual's linguistic competence qualifies that person as bilingual. The results show a range of responses for both concepts, indicating substantial ambiguity for these terms. Moreover, participants were asked to self-classify as monolingual or bilingual, and these decisions were not related to more objective information regarding the degree of bilingual experience obtained from a detailed questionnaire. These results are consistent with the notion that bilingualism is not categorical and that specific language experiences are important in determining the criteria for being bilingual. The results impact interpretations of research investigating group differences on the cognitive effects of bilingualism.

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The Bilingual Advantage in Children’s Executive Functioning Is Not Related to Language Status: A Meta-Analytic Review

Cited by 72 publications

References 156 publications

Effect of bilingualism on infants’ cognitive flexibility

Effect of bilingualism on infants’ cognitive flexibility

The concept of inhibition in bilingual control.

What Is a Language? Who Is Bilingual? Perceptions Underlying Self-Assessment in Studies of Bilingualism

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