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Abstract Bilingual infants from 6‐ to 24‐months of age are more likely to generalize, flexibly reproducing actions on novel objects significantly more often than age‐matched monolingual infants are. In the current study, we examine whether the addition of novel verbal labels enhances memory generalization in a perceptually complex imitation task. We hypothesized that labels would provide an additional retrieval cue and aid memory generalization for bilingual infants. Specifically, we hypothesized that bilinguals might be more likely than monolinguals to map multiple perceptual features onto a novel label and therefore show enhanced generalization. Eighty‐seven 18‐month‐old monolingual and bilingual infants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions or a baseline control condition. In the experimental conditions, either no label or a novel label was added during demonstration and again at the beginning of the test session. After a 24‐hr delay, infants were tested with the same stimulus set to test cued recall and with a perceptually different but functionally equivalent stimulus set to test memory generalization. Bilinguals performed significantly above baseline on both cued recall and memory generalization in both experimental conditions, whereas monolinguals performed significantly above baseline only on cued recall in both experimental conditions. These findings show a difference between monolinguals and bilinguals in memory generalization and suggest that generalization differences between groups may arise from visual perceptual processing rather than linguistic processing. A video abstract of this article can be viewed athttps://youtu.be/yXB4pM3fF2k
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Executive related skills in middle school students with limited English proficiency
Objective Some studies have demonstrated evidence of a 'bilingual advantage' in domains such as working memory (WM), processing speed (PS), and attention. Less is known about whether similar patterns appear in students who have not yet mastered a second language, and available evidence is conflicting. For example, in Hansen et al. (2016), young students classified as limited English proficient (LEP) outperformed monolingual peers in WM; however, the opposite was found in Castillo et al. (2022). In both studies, the group differences did not persist into adolescence, and other studies at this age show no difference (Low & Siegel, 2005). Research on LEP students and PS is sparse, but most existing studies show no difference between monolinguals and bilinguals or LEP students (Barac et al., 2014). Visual attention (VA) has rarely been studied in this context. However, one study of adults found no difference in visual attention between monolinguals and bilinguals (Bouffier et al., 2020). Here, we compare groups of students who are classified as LEP or not; given prior research and the age and limited second-language proficiency of our subjects, we hypothesized that there would be no difference between groups in WM and PS; the limited research on VA does not allow for a directional hypothesis. Methods Participants were 199 students in from four diverse middle schools in Texas, whose mean age was 12.97 (0.86); 54% were male. Most (80%) students were Hispanic, and 54% were classified by their schools as LEP; 88% received lunch assistance. WM and PS were assessed via the respective indices of the WISC-V (Wechsler, 2014). Attention was evaluated with two versions of a visual attention span (VAS) measure, and two versions of a visual search (VSEARCH) measure. We considered covariates of age, nonverbal reasoning, and phonological processing. Analyses were ANCOVA, with a grouping variable of LEP status. Results Descriptively, on measures where standard scores were available, performances for the whole sample were in the low average range (SS equivalents range 85 to 88). Students designated as LEP had lower WM performances, p < .001. For PS, the reverse was true, with LEP students having stronger PS, p < .001. For attention, results were mixed; performance on VAS was similar between groups, p = .174, whereas for VSEARCH, LEP students had better performances, p < .001. All results held in the context of any combination of covariates. Discussion Results were interesting but differed from expectations. For WM, there was a disadvantage for students classified as LEP, whereas the opposite was true for PS and VSEARCH. The results highlight the need to consider these and similar cognitive individual differences in the context of second language learning, and a need to consider the balance of proficiency across languages. Supporting this possibility, a meta-analysis found that studies of balanced compared to unbalanced bilinguals are more likely to report an advantage in WM and attention (Yurtsever et al., 2023). Overall, this study adds to a limited body of evidence on cognitive processes in students with exposure to, but not mastery of, multiple languages.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1760760
- PAR ID:
- 10650727
- Publisher / Repository:
- International Neuropsychological Society
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- New York, NY
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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