3-143 - The bilingual advantage meets big data: Results of three large-sample studies in children

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The question of whether bilingual children hold an executive function (EF) advantage over monolingual children has stimulated substantial research, but controversy remains about whether such an advantage exists, and there are advocates on both sides (see target article/commentaries in Cortex, 2015 (v. 69). With some notable exceptions, research to date has been conducted in small samples. This is undesirable because it can both increase the risk of failure to find differences when they do exist, and simultaneously may increase the risk of reporting significant findings that are susceptible to sampling bias. In the three studies presented here, we address this issue with large-sample investigations in children (n = 4524; n = 700, n = 500). In each case, there was a failure to replicate an effect of language status across a number of different executive function tasks. These results have far reaching implications for the nature and reliability of the bilingual EF advantage in children. We also investigated whether demographic factors—namely socioeconomic status (SES)—might mitigate or even explain differences found in previous studies of bilingual advantages for EF. Two of the reported studies (one with infants; n = 80) affirmed the importance of SES in shaping developmental trajectories, and how this variable might moderate any EF differences between monolinguals and bilinguals. The results we report further clarify the situations in which EF differences associated with language status might occur, and re-affirm the importance of sample size and careful measurement of potentially important demographic variables such as SES.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chairs

• Anthony Steven Dick, Florida International University

• J Bruce Morton, University of Western Ontario

Discussant

• Gigi Luk, McGill University

Individual Presentations

• No bilingual advantage for executive function: Evidence from the ABCD Study. - Presenting Author: Anthony Steven Dick, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Nelcida Llissett Garcia, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Shannon M Pruden, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Wesley Thompson, University of California at San Diego; Non-Presenting Author: Samuel Hawes, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Matthew Sutherland, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Michael Riedel, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Angela Laird, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Raul Gonzalez, Florida International University

• Associations between Bilingualism and Neurocognitive Outcomes during Childhood: Does Socioeconomic Status Matter? - Presenting Author: Natalie Hiromi Brito, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Kimberly G. Noble, Teachers College, Columbia University

• The bilingual advantage in 10-12-year-olds: An international study of language, culture, and cognitive control. - Presenting Author: J Bruce Morton, University of Western Ontario; Non-Presenting Author: Leyla Akoury Dirani, American University of Beirut; Non-Presenting Author: Junsheng Liu, East China Normal University; Non-Presenting Author: Samantha Goldsmith, University of Western Ontario