Bilingualism And Executive Functions: Study Of Working Memory, Selective Attention, Cognitive Flexibility, Planning In Monolingual And Bilingual Children

Abstract

An emerging topic in cognitive development is the issue of bilingualism and whether it constitutes an advantage in children’s performance on executive function. This issue has been discussed and debated in several studies; many of them have shown that bilingual children outperform monolinguals on tasks testing executive functioning, but other studies have not revealed any effect of bilingualism. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of bilingualism on children's executive functions (Working memory, Selective attention, Planning and Cognitive flexibility). Participants were a hundred children aged between 8 -11 years old; divided between fifty Arabic - French bilingual and fifty Arabic monolingual children. We administered the child language experience and proficiency questionnaire, digit span, visual attention, the wisconsin card sorting and Rey complex figure tasks in order to examine their abilities in executive functions. The results showed a significant difference between bilingual and monolingual children in executive function tasks. The bilingual outperformed monolinguals in all tasks administered in the study