Gathercole, V. C. M. , Thomas, E. M. , Young, N. , Viñas Guasch, N. , Hughes, E. K. & Jones, L.
Bangor University
This talk examines the extent to which bilingual speakers show the reported advantage of bilinguals over monolinguals on EF tasks when extraneous factors such as languages spoken and cultural differences are controlled for. Some have suggested that when such extraneous factors are controlled, either performance of bilinguals and monolinguals is indistinguishable or performance is reflective of other factors, such as SES, language, or short term memory differences. We compare the performance of bilingual and monolingual primary school age and teenage speakers on a range of EF tasks. The bilinguals come from three home language types, reflective of language dominance patterns.
Tapping tasks, Stroop tasks, and dimensional change card sorting tasks are compared. Approximately 200 children were tested for each type task, as well as for vocabulary and grammar and for general cognitive abilities, and detailed information was collected regarding SES level and language usage.
Results across the tasks vary according to task and age. No "winner" bilingual group shows a clear advantage across the board on the EF tasks. Instead, one group or another shows hints of better performance on a given task (e.g., OWH* show overall best performance in the tapping task, but not just in the switch tapping task; WEH bilinguals show some advantage at age 7 on the English Stroop condition, but no one shows an advantage in Welsh; monolingual teenagers are slowest in the card sort overall , but not just in the dimensional change conditions). In addition, performance on every EF task shows significant correlations with other factors, including vocabulary or grammar ability in one or both languages, SES level, general cognitive level or cognitive abilities related to a specific component (e.g., number abilities).
* OWH = only Welsh at home; WEH = Welsh and English at home