Longitudinal Effects of Inhibitory Control on Language Development in Single and Dual Language Learning Preschoolers

• In Event: Bilingualism - early childhood

Abstract

The development of language skills and inhibitory control is closely intertwined. Inhibitory control is identified as a consequence and as a driver of language skills (Fuhs et al., 2014). Language can be used as a self-regulatory tool to guide attention and behavior. At the same time, inhibitory control seems to be essential to direct attention to reliable linguistic cues within complex communicative environments. For decades, it has been assumed that dual language learners develop a special advantage in inhibitory control in comparison to single language learners. This is explained by the assumption that dual language learners actively inhibit one of the two languages they do not use in a communicative situation (Bialystok, 2010). Recently, however, Giguere et al. (2022) found in a cross-sectional study that the dual language learning advantage in inhibition may be better explained by a specific selection effect. The task of acquiring a societal language for children from minority language-speaking homes seems to make cognitive demands that result in the more successful learners being those with stronger inhibitory skills. Such a special relationship between the societal language competence of dual language learners and inhibitory control might cause the inhibition advantage of dual language learners to occur if the drawn sample of dual language learners has non-representatively high levels of societal language skills. We examine the hypothesis of a special importance of inhibitory skills for the development of the societal language in dual language learners, with the first longitudinal dataset of a cohort-sequence study with single and dual language learning preschoolers in Switzerland and Germany.
At present, 317 single and 214 dual language learners (Mbaseline-age(SD) = 48.60(8.08) months; 50% girls) with the societal languages French (32%) or (Swiss-)German (68%) and the heritage languages Turkish (50%) or Italian (50%) participated. Children are assessed over 2.5 years across three measurement points. For the assessment of inhibitory control, we use a shortened version of the computerized Pointing Stroop Task (Berger et al., 2002). Societal (and also heritage) language productive vocabulary and receptive language skills (vocabulary and sentence comprehension) are assessed via standardized tests. Using multilevel models we analyzed longitudinal data of a currently 46% of our sample (17% with three measurement points). Contrary to expectations, inhibitory control was not more pronounced in dual than in single language learners. Cross-sectionally, the associations between inhibitory control and societal language skills were strongly positive and did not differ between single and dual language learners. Longitudinal inhibitory control effects, were found in the societal language sentence comprehension test only. As anticipated, the proficiency increase was more strongly positively predicted by inhibitory control in dual than single language learners (BETA_SINGLE = -.17 vs BETA_DUAL = .24; psDIFF <. 05). The effects longitudinally confirm the assumption of a special importance of inhibitory control for the societal language development of young dual language learners. The findings are discussed with regard to the best possible language support for young dual language learners and with regard to the scientific debate on bilingual inhibitory advantages.

Authors

• Robin Klaus Segerer, University of Basel
  Presenting Author

• Leila Teresa Schächinger Tenés, University of Basel, Switzerland

• Ankica Jurkic, University of Bern

• Daniel Schulz, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg

• Alexander Grob, University of Basel

• Jessica Carolyn Weiner, University of Basel