Recent studies revealed inconsistent evidences of a bilingual advantage in executive processing. One potential source of explanation is the multifaceted experience of the bilinguals in these studies. This study seeks to test whether bilinguals who engage in language selection more frequently would perform better in executive control tasks than those bilinguals who engage in language selection less frequently. We examined the influence of the degree of bilingualism (i.e., language proficiency, frequency of use of two languages, and age of second language acquisition) on executive functioning in bilingual young adults using a comprehensive battery of executive control tasks. Seventy-two 18- to 25-years-old English–Mandarin bilinguals performed four computerized executive function (EF) tasks (Stroop, Eriksen flanker, number–letter switching, and n-back task) that measure the EF components: inhibition, mental-set shifting, and information updating and monitoring. Results from multiple regression analyses, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping supported the positive association between age of second language acquisition and the interference cost in the Stroop task. Most importantly, we found a significant effect of balanced bilingualism (balanced usage of and balanced proficiency in two languages) on the Stroop and number–letter task (mixing cost only), indicating that a more balanced use and a more balanced level of proficiency in two languages resulted in better executive control skills in the adult bilinguals. We did not find any significant effect of bilingualism on flanker or n-back task. These findings provided important insights to the underlying mechanisms of the bilingual cognitive advantage hypothesis, demonstrating that regular experience with extensive practice in controlling attention to their two language systems results in better performance in related EFs such as inhibiting prepotent responses and global set-shifting.

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Preschoolers tend to rely on what speakers say rather than how they sound when interpreting a speaker's emotion while adults rely instead on tone of voice. However, children who have a greater need to attend to speakers’ communicative requirements, such as bilingual children, may be more adept in using paralinguistic cues (e.g. tone of voice) when interpreting a speaker's affect. We explored whether bilingual children are better able than monolingual children to use paralinguistic cues when interpreting a speaker's emotion. While monolingual and bilingual children were equally capable of identifying emotion using affective information in low-pass filtered speech stimuli (Study 1), bilingual children were better able than monolingual children to use tone of voice when judging emotion in natural speech when content was clear (Study 2).

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Code-switching is a common phenomenon that bilinguals engage in, including bilingual children. While many researchers have analyzed code-switching behaviors to better understand more about the language processes in bilingual children, few have examined how code-switching behavior affects a child's linguistic competence. This study thus sought to examine the relationship between code-switching and linguistic competency in bilingual children. Fifty-five English–Mandarin bilingual children aged 5 to 6 years were observed during classroom activities over five days (three hours each day). A number of different word roots and mean length of utterance for both languages, and a number of code-switched utterances for each child, were computed. English receptive vocabulary scores were also obtained. Additionally, teachers rated children's English and Mandarin language competencies approximately six months later. Correlational and hierarchical regression analyses support the argument that code-switching does not indicate linguistic incompetence. Instead, bilingual children's code-switching strongly suggests that it is a marker of linguistic competence.

In everyday communication, speakers make use of a variety of contextual and gestural cues to modulate the meaning of an utterance. Young children have difficulty in integrating multiple communicative cues when some of them have to be interpreted differently depending on other co-occurring cues. However, bilingual children, who regularly experience communicative challenges that demand greater attention and flexibility, may be more adept in integrating multiple cues to understand a speaker's communicative intent. We replicated Nurmsoo and Bloom's (2008) procedure with three-year-old monolingual and bilingual children using a procedure in which they saw two novel objects while the experimenter could see only one. The experimenter looked at the object she could see and said either “There's the [novel-word!]” or “Where's the [novel-word]?”. Compared to monolinguals, bilingual preschoolers were better able to integrate the semantics of “where”, perceptual access of the experimenter, and the nonlinguistic context of the game to successfully differentiate the speaker's communicative intent.

Young children typically do not use order-of-mention to resolve ambiguous pronouns, but may do so if given additional cues, such as gestures. Additionally, this ability to utilize gestures may be enhanced in bilingual children, who may be more sensitive to such cues due to their unique language experience. We asked monolingual and bilingual four-year-olds and adults to determine referents of ambiguous pronouns given order-of-mention and co-referential localizing gestures. Results showed that bilingual children, like adults, but not monolingual children, used order-of-mention with gestures to resolve ambiguous pronouns. This highlights a wider implication of bilingualism for socio-cognitive development in children.

Research has demonstrated a bilingual advantage in how young children use referential cues such as eye gaze and pointing gesture to locate an object or to categorize objects. This study investigated the use of referential cues (i.e. eye gaze) in fast mapping in three groups of children that differed in their language exposure. One hundred and seven 54-month-old children who were English monolinguals (n = 28), English-Mandarin bilinguals (n = 48), and English-Mandarin bilinguals with exposure to a third language (i.e. trilinguals, n = 31) were assessed with a word learning task using two types of test - a referent test and a mutual exclusivity test. During the task, following the gaze of an adult speaker was needed to be able to indicate the correct referent of a novel word at test. All three groups of children demonstrated successful word learning in explicit selection of and implicit looking time toward the target object during testing. However, bilingual and trilingual children outperformed their monolingual peers in both types of test when they were asked to explicitly select the correct objects. These findings suggest positive effects of bilingualism on children's use of referential cues in fast mapping.