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Bilingualism and the Development of Executive Function: The Role of Attention
Author(s) -
Bialystok Ellen
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
child development perspectives
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1750-8606
pISSN - 1750-8592
DOI - 10.1111/cdep.12116
Subject(s) - neuroscience of multilingualism , psychology , executive functions , cognition , cognitive psychology , inhibitory control , function (biology) , process (computing) , developmental psychology , cognitive development , cognitive science , neuroscience , computer science , evolutionary biology , biology , operating system
In this article, I review research examining the effect of bilingualism on children's cognitive development and in particular, executive function. I describe studies reporting bilingual advantages in various tasks to identify the process or component of executive function that might be responsible for this bilingual advantage, discussing several possibilities, including inhibitory control. Finally, I propose attention is a fundamental process that initiates developmental differences in bilingual children from as early as infancy.