Bilingualism Effects on the Cognitive Flexibility of Autistic Children: Evidence From Verbal Dual-Task Paradigms

Abstract

The deficit in cognitive flexibility, i.e. the ability to adapt cognitive behavior to changing contexts, is one of the most prominent characteristics of autistic individuals. Inflexibility may manifest in restricted interests and increased susceptibility to the effects of misinformation either through inefficient inhibition of non-target information or deficient recall of correct information. Bilingualism has been shown to enhance executive functions in both typically-developing children and autistic children, yet, the effect of bilingualism on cognitive flexibility in autism remains underexplored. In this study, we used verbal dual-tasks to compare cognitive flexibility across 50 monolingual autistic and 50 bilingual autistic children, and 50 monolingual and 50 bilingual typically-developing children. The children were also administered language ability tests and a nonverbal global-local cognitive flexibility task, in order to investigate whether performance in the dual-tasks would be modulated by the children’s language and executive function skills. The bilingual autistic children outperformed their monolingual autistic peers in the dual tasks. The strength of the bilingualism effect, however, was modulated by the type of language processing that interfered with the target information in each dual-task, which suggests that the bilingual autistic children calibrated their processing resources and efficiently adapted them to the changing demands of the dual-task only to the extent that the task did not exceed their language abilities. Bilingual autistic children relied on their executive functions rather than on their language abilities while performing in the dual-tasks. The overall results show that bilingualism compensates for the reduced cognitive flexibility in autism.

Bilingualism effects on cognition in autistic children are not all-or-nothing: The role of socioeconomic status in intellectual skills in bilingual autistic children

“…This paucity in research is troubling for two reasons. First, a sizable subset of children with a diagnosis of autism is growing up bilingual (Hambly & Fombonne, 2012), as this is the case for at least half of the world’s population (Saville-Troike, 2006); and, second, the experience of dual language exposure has been found to significantly modulate the cognitive functioning of children with autism (Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2017; Peristeri et al, 2020; Peristeri, Vogelzang, & Tsimpli, 2021; Peristeri, Baldimtsi, et al, 2021; Ratto et al, 2020; Sharaan et al, 2020, 2021). The current study examined the intelligence profiles of 316 bilingual and gender- and age-matched monolingual children with autism using the WISC–Third Edition (WISC-III), tracked cluster profiles across groups, and modeled intellectual functioning in each cluster as a function of language experience (monolingualism vs bilingualism), socioeconomic status (SES), and age.…”

“…More specifically, bilingual experience in autistic children has been found to positively modulate their cognition by enhancing executive function and theory-of-mind skills (for executive functions, see Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2017; Iarocci et al, 2017; Peristeri et al, 2020; Ratto et al, 2020; Sharaan et al, 2020, 2021, for theory-of-mind, see Peristeri, Baldimtsi, et al, 2021). Bilingualism may even mitigate autism-related deficits, such as hyper-attention to detail (Peristeri et al, 2020), sustained attention (Sharaan et al, 2020), and cognitive inflexibility (Gonzalez-Barrero & Nadig, 2017; Peristeri, Vogelzang, & Tsimpli, 2021). We should note, however, that bilingualism effects on autistic children’s executive functions are rather selective since the advantages reported in these studies refer to one outcome of the executive function measure used.…”

Cognitive flexibility in autism: Evidence from young autistic children

“…Difficulties in cognitive flexibility in autism have been mainly evident in attention-shifting (Eigsti et al, 2008;Memari et al, 2013;Mostert-Kerckhoffs et al, 2015), updating (Peristeri et al, 2020) and verbal dual-task interference paradigms (Peristeri et al, 2021), and they have been linked to autistic children's increased susceptibility to perseverative thought and behavior. Difficulties in cognitive flexibility have also been key to explaining autistic school-aged children's rigidity in judgment and decision making despite subsequent correction or cues denoting changing task conditions (Bos et al, 2019;D'Cruz et al, 2013); autistic individuals tend to perseverate on narrow topics and struggle with transitions or seeing novel relationships.…”

“…Although cognitive flexibility is an “umbrella” term that incorporates a set of executive function skills, shifting has been treated as being synonymous with this cognitive skill, since both involve the ability to switch flexibly between mental states and take multiple simultaneous perspectives in response to the changing context (Vandierendonck et al, 2010 ). Decades of research have provided compelling evidence that autism is characterized by difficulties in cognitive flexibility (Fujino et al, 2019 ; Peristeri et al, 2020 , 2021 ), but the nature and magnitude of these difficulties is unclear, due to assessments that may not accurately represent the potential of young autistic children (Kapp et al, 2013 ), as well as the varied ability levels of participants, complexity of tasks, and stimulus domains used (Landry & Al‐Taie, 2016 ; Memari et al, 2013 ). For instance, studies that have used performance‐based tasks (e.g., Wisconsin Card Sorting Task) to assess cognitive flexibility were more discordant about the presence of difficulties in autism than studies that used parental questionnaire‐based assessments (e.g., Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Function; see Landry & Al‐Taie, 2016 for a meta‐analysis).…”

“…For instance, studies that have used performance‐based tasks (e.g., Wisconsin Card Sorting Task) to assess cognitive flexibility were more discordant about the presence of difficulties in autism than studies that used parental questionnaire‐based assessments (e.g., Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Function; see Landry & Al‐Taie, 2016 for a meta‐analysis). Difficulties in cognitive flexibility in autism have been mainly evident in attention‐shifting (Eigsti et al, 2008 ; Memari et al, 2013 ; Mostert‐Kerckhoffs et al, 2015 ), updating (Peristeri et al, 2020 ) and verbal dual‐task interference paradigms (Peristeri et al, 2021 ), and they have been linked to autistic children's increased susceptibility to perseverative thought and behavior. Difficulties in cognitive flexibility have also been key to explaining autistic school‐aged children's rigidity in judgment and decision making despite subsequent correction or cues denoting changing task conditions (Bos et al, 2019 ; D'Cruz et al, 2013 ); autistic individuals tend to perseverate on narrow topics and struggle with transitions or seeing novel relationships.…”