TY - JOUR
T1 - Attentional control in early and later bilingual children
AU - Kapa, Leah L.
AU - Colombo, John
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the children and families who participated in the study. We thank Bruno Tagliaferri and Doug Kieweg for providing technical support, Sara McElhaney for assistance with data scoring and analysis, Daniel Sullivan for commenting on an earlier draft, and Mabel Rice and Alison Gabriele for providing valuable input to the project at various stages of conduct and development. Leah Kapa was supported by a PHS traineeship provided by T32-DC000052 . This work was supported by core services provided by the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience in Communication Disorders ( P30-DC005803 ) and the Kansas Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (P30- HD002528 ).
PY - 2013/7
Y1 - 2013/7
N2 - We examined differences in attentional control among school-age children who were monolingual English speakers, early Spanish-English bilinguals (who began speaking both languages by age 3), and later Spanish-English bilingual children (who began speaking English after age 3). Children's attentional control was tested using the Attention Network Test (ANT). All language groups performed equally on ANT networks; however, when controlling for age and verbal ability, groups differed significantly on reaction time. Early bilingual children responded faster on the ANT compared to both monolingual and later bilingual children, suggesting an attentional monitoring advantage for early bilinguals. These results add to evidence of advantaged cognitive functioning among bilinguals and are consistent with the possibility that children who begin speaking a second language earlier in childhood have greater advantages, due either to effects of acquiring a second language earlier or to longer duration of bilingual experience.
AB - We examined differences in attentional control among school-age children who were monolingual English speakers, early Spanish-English bilinguals (who began speaking both languages by age 3), and later Spanish-English bilingual children (who began speaking English after age 3). Children's attentional control was tested using the Attention Network Test (ANT). All language groups performed equally on ANT networks; however, when controlling for age and verbal ability, groups differed significantly on reaction time. Early bilingual children responded faster on the ANT compared to both monolingual and later bilingual children, suggesting an attentional monitoring advantage for early bilinguals. These results add to evidence of advantaged cognitive functioning among bilinguals and are consistent with the possibility that children who begin speaking a second language earlier in childhood have greater advantages, due either to effects of acquiring a second language earlier or to longer duration of bilingual experience.
KW - Attention Network Test
KW - Attentional monitoring
KW - Bilingualism
KW - Cognitive control
KW - Language acquisition
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cogdev.2013.01.011
DO - 10.1016/j.cogdev.2013.01.011
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84882773067
VL - 28
SP - 233
EP - 246
JO - Cognitive Development
JF - Cognitive Development
SN - 0885-2014
IS - 3
ER -