“A different language is a different version of life.”
- Federico Fellini
A study published in Psychological Bulletin found that there was little convincing support for the notion that bilingual children have an advantage in overall cognitive functioning.
The work was conducted by researchers Hilde Lowell Gunnerud, Dieuwer ten Braak, Elin Kirsti Lie Reikeras from the University of Stavanger, as well as researchers Enrica Donolato, Monica Melby-Lervag from the University of Oslo.
Bilingualism, the act of being proficient in more than one language, is most commonly understood to provide cognitive advantages and to boost one’s intelligence. The theory is that being fluent in two or more languages develops an individual’s abilities in cognitive tasks such as task switching, working memory, attention, and inhibition.
Some known benefits to being bilingual include the ability for children to build strong connections with their family and culture, access worldwide information easily, as well as take part in a global society much more efficiently than monolingual children.
The study and findings
This study was conducted on the basis of a meta-analytic procedure in the hopes of answering five research questions:
To what extent is there really a bilingual advantage?
How do the differences between monolingual and bilingual children affect moderator variables such as nonverbal IQ, socioeconomic status, second language proficiency etc.?
How do the differences between monolingual and bilingual children affect the target non-verbal cognitive abilities such as attention, working memory, cold inhibition, task switching etc.?
How does having a bilingual advantage relate to the moderator variables and the tasks being conducted?
What are the effects of publication bias (when the outcomes of the study influence the decision to publish them)?
A multitude of primary articles and sources were reviewed in an effort to answer these questions.
First, the results showed that the differences between monolingual and bilingual children only slightly confirmed a bilingual advantage.
In terms of the moderator variables, socioeconomic status level (whether the monolingual and bilingual samples were upper, middle, or lower class) was the only significant factor. The middle-class children displayed a noticeably greater bilingual advantage in comparison to the upper and lower class children.
The third research question focused on bilingual advantages by specific executive conditions. Significant differences existed between the domains and there was a noticeable difference that supported bilingual children in task switching, monitoring, and inhibition.
Next, the relationships between executive function abilities and moderator variables showed that there was no significant effect of socioeconomic status on working memory specifically. As well, there were not enough children in the upper or middle class analysis to display results for the other domains such as task switching, cold inhibition, or attention.
Overall, there is still a degree of uncertainty concerning whether or not bilingual children have notable cognitive advantages. As per this study, the evidence is limited as each executive ability is affected differently by this so-called “advantage.”