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Interactions between levels of attention ability and levels of bilingualism in children's executive functioning

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Developmental Science

Published online on

Abstract

Attention difficulty is associated with poor performance on executive functioning (EF) tasks, yet EF is enhanced in bilingual children. However, no research to date has investigated the possible interaction between bilingualism and attention ability in children to determine the consequences for EF when both are present. We assessed a sample of typically developing children who were 8 to 11 years old for their ability in attention control and level of bilingualism on the basis of questionnaires completed by parents and teachers. Children performed three tasks requiring aspects of EF: stop signal task (inhibition), flanker task (interference control), and frogs matrices task (spatial working memory). Results from hierarchical regressions confirmed that both attention ability and bilingualism contributed to performance on the EF tasks. Where interaction effects were significant, they showed that attention ability was a stronger predictor for an inhibition task, namely stop signal, and bilingualism a stronger predictor for an interference task, namely flanker. Furthermore, these results allow us to discuss the relation between EF and attention ability. This project is the first to investigate the interaction between bilingualism and attention ability on children's executive functioning (EF). Consistent with previous literature, poor attention was associated with poorer EF and greater degree of bilingualism was associated with better EF performance across all tasks. Interactions showed that each of bilingualism and attention ability is primary for different EF tasks.