Identifying a Threshold for the Executive Function Advantage in Bilingual Children

Cat, Cécile De; Gusnanto, Arief; Serratrice, Ludovica

doi:10.1017/s0272263116000486

Cited by 81 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 81 publications

(146 reference statements)

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“…9 A continuous model would allow researchers to investigate subtle effects of bilingualism and would therefore be useful in specialized applications. For instance, the investigation of potential cognitive benefits of bilingualism in adults could benefit from the ability to detect smaller effects, and using a continuous model could potentially establish thresholds to see effects of bilingualism in this domain (e.g., Cummins, 1976;De Cat et al, 2018;Ricciardelli, 1992).…”

Section: Continuous Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why not both? Rethinking categorical and continuous approaches to bilingualism

Kremin¹,

Byers‐Heinlein²

2020

Preprint

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Bilingualism is a complex construct, and it can be difficult to define and model. This paper proposes that the field of bilingualism can draw from other fields of psychology, by integrating advanced psychometric models that incorporate both categorical and continuous properties. These models can unify the widespread use of bilingual and monolingual groups that exist in the literature with recent proposals that bilingualism should be viewed as a continuous variable. In the paper, we highlight two models of potential interest: the factor mixture model and the grade-of-membership model. These models simultaneously allow for the formation of different categories of speakers and for variation to exist within these categories. Researchers can then conduct their analyses on either the categorical or continuous information, or a combination of the two, depending on which is most appropriate to address their research question. Conceptualizing bilingualism within the context of these more flexible models will help to advance theory and lead to a fuller and deeper understanding of bilingualism.

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Section: Continuous Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why not both? Rethinking categorical and continuous approaches to bilingualism

Kremin¹,

Byers‐Heinlein²

2020

Preprint

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“…English-speaking monolingual children and bilingual children with varying degrees of exposure to a language other than English (henceforth the HOME LANGUAGE) are therefore included in the study. Language experience is conceptualized here both in terms of cumulative amount of exposure and use of the home language (Bilingual Profile Index, BPI, De Cat, Gusnanto & Serratrice, 2017;De Cat & Serratrice, under review), and in terms of language proficiency as measured by the Articles sub-test of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (Seymour, Roeper & de Villiers, 2003), a dialect-neutral assessment for 4-to 9-year-olds, that minimizes the effects of language exposure differences in bilingual and bicultural children. We expect that children with better language proficiencywhich is in turn likely to be predicted by the amount of exposure and use of Englishwill be more sensitive to the presence of discourse and visual competitors.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in the production of referential expressions: The effect of language proficiency, language exposure and executive function in bilingual and monolingual children

Serratrice

Cat

2019

Bilingualism

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One hundred and seventy-two English-speaking 5- to 7-year-olds participated in a referential communication task where we manipulated the linguistic mention and the visual presence of a competitor alongside a target referent. Eighty-seven of the children were additionally exposed to a language other than English (bilinguals). We measured children's language proficiency, verbal working memory (WM), cognitive control skills, family SES, and relative amount of cumulative exposure and use of the home language for the bilinguals. Children's use of full Noun Phrases (NPs) to identify a target referent was predicted by the visual presence of a competitor more than by its linguistic mention. Verbal WM and proficiency predicted NP use, while cognitive control skills predicted both the ability to use expressions signalling discourse integration and sensitivity to the presence of a discourse competitor, but not of a visual competitor. Bilingual children were as informative as monolingual children once proficiency was controlled for.

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“…We refer the interested reader to (De Cat et al, 2018) for the analysis of the cognitive measures used in this study.…”

Section: Footnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Language Proficiency in Bilingual Children

Cat

2019

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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Using advanced quantitative methods, this article demonstrates that cumulative exposure to the school language is the best language experience predictor of proficiency in that language (as indexed by sentence repetition, lexical semantic, and discourse semantic tasks) in a highly diverse group of 5- to 7-year-old bilingual children in monolingual education. An objective method is proposed to identify the amount of school language experience beyond which bilingual children are likely to perform within the monolingual range, and show that relative passivity in the home language does not translate into better school language proficiency. Socioeconomic status is shown to interact in complex ways with language exposure, such that it is only above a certain level of exposure to the school language that the benefits of a more privileged background have a tangible impact on school language proficiency. To tease apart the effect of environmental predictors from the effect of cognitive factors, memory and cognitive flexibility measures are included as covariates in all analyses.

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Identifying a Threshold for the Executive Function Advantage in Bilingual Children

Cited by 81 publications

References 81 publications

Why not both? Rethinking categorical and continuous approaches to bilingualism

Why not both? Rethinking categorical and continuous approaches to bilingualism

Individual differences in the production of referential expressions: The effect of language proficiency, language exposure and executive function in bilingual and monolingual children

Predicting Language Proficiency in Bilingual Children

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