Comprehension of complex sentences with misleading cues in monolingual and bilingual children.

Bilingual children typically perform more poorly than monolingual children on linguistic tasks but better than monolingual children on cognitive tasks requiring executive function. The present study examined performance on complex linguistic tasks that also required executive functioning for their s...

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Published in:Applied Psycholinguistics Vol. 42; no. 5; pp. 1117 - 1135
Main Authors: Ostadghafour, Sarvenaz, Bialystok, Ellen
Format: pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article
Published: Cambridge University Press Sep2021
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Sep2021
      vid: 42
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      pub: Cambridge University Press
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        atl: Comprehension of complex sentences with misleading cues in monolingual and bilingual children.
      aug:
        au:
          Ostadghafour, Sarvenaz
          Bialystok, Ellen
        affil: Department of Psychology, York University, M3J 1P3 Toronto, ON, Canada
      sug:
        subj:
          Task Performance and Analysis Evaluation
          Multilingualism In Infancy and Childhood
          Linguistics
          Cognition
          Executive Function
          Human
          Child, Preschool
          Distraction
          Calibration
          Attention
          Communication Skills
          Cues
          Speech Perception
          Child, Preschool: 2-5 years
      ab: Bilingual children typically perform more poorly than monolingual children on linguistic tasks but better than monolingual children on cognitive tasks requiring executive function. The present study examined performance on complex linguistic tasks that also required executive functioning for their solution. One hundred 4-year-olds from linguistically diverse backgrounds (36 monolinguals, 64 bilinguals) performed two linguistic tasks in which misleading information needed to be ignored to select the correct answer. Data were analyzed both categorically by comparing the performance of children assigned to monolingual and bilingual groups and continuously in terms of degree of bilingual experience across the entire sample. In the categorical analyses, bilingual children were more accurate than monolingual children in understanding the meaning of spoken sentences in the presence of distraction in both tasks, and continuous analyses showed that performance was calibrated to degree of bilingualism in one of the tasks, with higher levels of bilingualism being associated with better performance. The interpretation is that attentional control built up through bilingual experience compensates for lower levels of language proficiency in performing these complex linguistic tasks. The study also endorses the use of continuous assessments of bilingualism rather than categorical assignment to groups to obtain more nuanced results.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        pictorial
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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