Executive Functioning Predicts School Readiness for Monolinguals but not Bilinguals: The Role of Metalinguistic Awareness

• In Event: Promoting well-being, social-emotional development and executive functioning in early childhood classrooms

Abstract

Dual language learners (DLLs) comprise over 10% of K-12 students in the United States. Research on monolinguals shows cognitive factors during preschool that predict later academic achievement: language proficiency (Tramontana et al., 1988), executive functioning (EF) (Bull et al., 2008), and metalinguistic awareness- which refers to children’s understanding of the nature of language (Demont & Gombert, 1996). While this is the case for monolingual children, we don’t know if these same factors are related to school readiness for DLLs. The current study investigated developmental differences in school readiness predictors at two timepoints.

108 preschool-aged children in the United States (F=52, M=56) participated at Time 1 (T1): 81 monolingual English speakers, and 27 bilinguals who were exposed both to English and to one of a variety of other languages (Age 33.5-61.6 mo., M=46.5). We assessed school readiness with the early academic skills subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson (WJ, 2015), English language proficiency through the Core Language subscale from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF, 2004), EF through the Happy/Sad, Bear/Dragon, Dimensional Card Sort, Working Memory (WM), MLA through a label/referent task, a Synonym Judgment, Judgments of Grammaticality, Phoneme Deletion, and Phonological Awareness, and Short Term Memory (STM). Nine months later we followed the children up for a return sample of 47 monolingual and 20 bilinguals (Age 45.5-66.5, M=54.3). COVID-19 related research restrictions significantly limited our return sample.

T1 relationships (controlling for age) between school readiness and our predictors revealed that for monolinguals, WJ was significantly related to the CELF (r(69)=.61, p=.000),
MLA (r(69)=.34, p=.004), EF (r(69)=.29, p=.024), and STM (r(69)=.46, p=.000). In turn, at T2 (controlling for age), school readiness was only related to T1 CELF (r(42)=.34, p=.021) and EF (r(42)=.32, p=.031). For DLLs, T1 school readiness was related to T1 CELF (r(22)=.85, p=.000) and MLA (r(22)=.57, p=.003). T2 school readiness for DLLs was related only to MLA (r(15)=.51, p=.04). There were no gender, age, or maternal levels of education differences between the groups.

Overall, we found notable differences in the factors that DLLs and monolinguals recruited for school readiness. At both time points, monolinguals relied on traditional factors like language proficiency and EF, as well as MLA at T1. In contrast, DLLs’ T1 school readiness was related to language proficiency and MLA, but at T2 school readiness was only related to T1 MLA. Surprisingly, EF was not related to DLLs’ school readiness at either time point, while it was so longitudinally for monolinguals. In turn, a meta-understanding of the nature of language was the only predictive factor for DLLs’ school readiness. These differences in relationships indicate that we should not assume that the school readiness relationships in the monolingual literature are applicable to DLL children. Future studies are still needed to understand those unique relationships.

Authors

• Vanessa Diaz, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  Presenting Author

• Kelly Elizabeth Runyon, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Su A Kim, Virginia Tech
  Non-Presenting Author