PLoS ONE (Jan 2019)

No evidence for effects of Turkish immigrant children's bilingualism on executive functions.

  • Nils Jaekel,
  • Julia Jaekel,
  • Jessica Willard,
  • Birgit Leyendecker

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209981
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 1
p. e0209981

Abstract

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Recent research has increasingly questioned the bilingual advantage for executive functions (EF). We used structural equation modeling in a large sample of Turkish immigrant and German monolingual children (N = 337; aged 5-15 years) to test associations between bilingualism and EF. Our data showed no significant group differences between Turkish immigrant and German children's EF skills while taking into account maternal education, child gender, age, and working memory (i.e., digit span backwards). Moreover, neither Turkish immigrant children's proficiency in either language nor their home language environment predicted EF. Our findings offer important new evidence in light of the ongoing debate about the existence of a bilingual advantage for EF.