Monolinguals matter! A cautionary tale on establishing a bilingual advantage

Abstract Summary

Abstract :

Some studies have shown bilingual advantages in executive function. For example,







Bialystok and Martin (2004) found that bilingual preschool children outperformed







monolingual children in performing the dimensional change card sort. In this task,







children are asked to sort cards with images according to one dimension of the image







(e.g., colour) and then asked to sort the same cards according to another dimension (e.g.,







shape). Young children often continue to sort the cards according to the first rule,







suggesting difficulties with cognitive flexibility. Other studies have not found bilingual







advantages on similar tasks, leading to calls for replication. The goal of our study was to







replicate this study using the same task, the same age range (4-6 year olds), slightly







higher sample size (their study: 36 children per group; our study: 40 children per group),







bilingual children who spoke the same language pair (Chinese and English), and







monolingual children who spoke the same language (English), with all children living in







the same country (Canada) as the Bialystok and Martin (2004) study. In addition to the







dimensional change card sort task, we also tested our participants on vocabulary, verbal







working memory (digit span), and visuospatial working memory (object assembly). In







our study, we found no difference between bilinguals and monolinguals on performance







on the dimensional change card sort task. Both groups of children in the present study







tended to perform better than the respective groups in Bialystok and Martin (2004), but







the bigger difference was between the two groups of monolinguals. We argue that the







monolingual children in our study were performing quite similarly to monolinguals of the







same age in other studies. These results suggest that it could be important to attend to







monolingual children’s performance, in addition to bilinguals’, when testing for a







bilingual advantage.