Attentional control in early and later bilingual children

Kapa, Leah L.; Colombo, John · 2013 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2013.01.011

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Summary

This study investigates how the age of second language acquisition (AoA) influences attentional control in school-age children. While previous research has established that bilinguals often exhibit cognitive advantages over monolingals, particularly in attentional inhibition and monitoring, less is known about how the timing of bilingual experience affects these skills. The authors aimed to determine whether early childhood bilinguals (those who began speaking a second language by age three) demonstrate greater attentional advantages than later childhood bilinguals (those who began after age three) or monolinguals. The study was motivated by conflicting findings in adult literature regarding whether early bilinguals have advantages in inhibition or monitoring, and by the need to disentangle the effects of AoA from the duration of bilingual experience. The researchers tested 79 school-age children (ages 5;8 to 14;11) divided into three groups: monolingual English speakers (n=22), early Spanish-English bilinguals (n=21), and later Spanish-English bilinguals (n=36). Participants completed the Attention Network Test (ANT), a computerized flanker task that measures three attentional networks: conflict (inhibition), alerting, and orienting. To control for potential confounding variables, the study also assessed participants' verbal ability using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (English) and the Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody (Spanish for bilinguals), as well as short-term memory via a Forward Digit Span Task. Parent reports were used to classify participants based on the age they began speaking each language and their daily language usage. The results indicated that all three language groups performed equally on the specific ANT network scores (conflict, alerting, and orienting), suggesting no significant differences in attentional inhibition or other network efficiencies when viewed in isolation. However, when controlling for age and verbal ability, significant differences emerged in overall reaction time. Early bilingual children responded significantly faster on the ANT compared to both monolingual and later bilingual children. This finding suggests a specific advantage in attentional monitoring for early bilinguals, as faster overall reaction times in mixed-trial tasks reflect more efficient switching between response demands. Later bilinguals did not differ significantly from monolinguals in reaction time. These findings contribute to the growing evidence of cognitive advantages associated with bilingualism, specifically highlighting the role of early language acquisition. The results suggest that beginning to speak a second language earlier in childhood leads to larger attentional monitoring advantages, potentially due to the differential effects of acquiring a second language during critical periods of attentional system development or due to a longer duration of bilingual experience. The study supports the hypothesis that early bilinguals outperform both later bilinguals and monolinguals in tasks requiring rapid adaptation to changing task demands, while noting that the specific mechanism—whether maturational timing or experience duration—remains a subject for further investigation.

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• executive function