Variations on the bilingual advantage? Links of Chinese and English proficiency to Chinese American children's self-regulation

Abstract

The present study examined whether bilingualism-related advantages in self-regulation could be observed: (a) among Chinese American immigrant children with varying levels of Chinese and English proficiencies, and (b) across different domains of self-regulation in laboratory, home, and classroom contexts. A socioeconomically diverse sample of first- and second-generation Chinese American immigrant children between ages 7 and 10 (n = 223) was administered assessments of Chinese and English language proficiencies and a multi-method, multi-informant battery of self-regulation measures. Multiple regression analyses suggested that controlling for covariates (child age, gender, and SES), children's bilingualism-related advantages were limited to higher performance only on computerized tasks of cognitive flexibility, and only among children with higher degrees of fluency in both Chinese and English. By contrast, proficiencies in one language (either Chinese or English) were uniquely and positively associated with other domains of self-regulation, including parent and teacher-reported effortful control. These results suggest that the bilingual advantage for self-regulation may be observed as a continuous variable among immigrant children with varying levels of bilingual fluency; however, this advantage may not extend across all domains and contexts of self-regulation.

Early Bilingualism Through the Looking Glass: Latino Preschool Children's Language and Self-Regulation Skills

“…Research investigating the consequences of bilingualism for other aspects of development has mostly focused on the intersection of bilingualism and cognitive domains, such as abstract reasoning and problem solving, cognitive flexibility, and metalinguistic awareness, as well as attention control and working memory. Most of this work has explored differences between bilingual and monolingual children, with some exceptions (e.g., Chen, Zhou, Uchikoshi, & Bunge, 2014; Thomas-Sunesson, Hakuta, & Bialystok, 2016; White & Greenfield, 2017). The comparative approach treats bilingualism as a categorical variable, foregrounding between-group differences at the expense of within-group variations.…”

A performance comparison between the two language versions of the Affective Go/No‐Go test: A randomised crossover study

“…A previous study suggested a positive relationship between attention and proficiency in languages (Segalowitz & Frenkiel‐Fishman, ). In addition, higher language proficiency was related to lower omission errors in the classical go/no‐go test (S. H. Chen et al, ). Thus, the lack of associations for omission errors between the two versions may be partly due to the variation in English proficiency rather than the psychometric properties of the tests themselves, although further studies are warranted.…”

“…Finally, the results in the main analysis holds true even after taking into account other possible confounding variables. Previous studies have shown that levels of depression, anxiety and language proficiency could influence the capacity to competently inhibit one's response to distractors (S. H. Chen et al, ; Kaiser et al, ; Li & Xue‐Bing, ). Thus, we carefully evaluated these variables and found that even after controlling for these possible confounding factors, the Korean AGN test performed just as well as the English version.…”

“…For these models, participant identifier was treated as a random factor while language and K‐ or E‐group order were treated as fixed factors. According to previous studies, language proficiency and level of depression and anxiety can influence the successful processing of response inhibition (S. H. Chen, Zhou, Uchikoshi, & Bunge, ; Kaiser et al, ; Li & Xue‐Bing, ). Thus, sensitivity analyses for the major outcome variables and ICC assessments were conducted by separately adding the following measures as fixed covariates in the model: (a) LexTALE score; (b) reading proficiency in Korean and that in English from LEAP‐Q; (c) HDRS score and (d) HARS score.…”

Employing Natural Control for Confounding Factors in the Hunt for the Bilingual Advantage in Attention: Evidence from School Children in Gibraltar

“…To measure the degree of 'bilingualism', participants were tested in their proficiency and usage of the English and Spanish languages. Bilingualism was measured on a continuous scale (rather than comparing bilingual to monolinguals categorically) in order to accurately capture variation between bilinguals (Chen, Zhou, Uchikoshi & Bunge, 2014;Hurtado, Gruter, Marchman & Fernald, 2014;Incera & McLennan, 2017).…”