Executive functions in mono- and bilingual children: Factor structure and relations with fluid intelligence

Verena E Johann; Susanne Enke; Catherine Gunzenhauser; Tanja Könen; Henrik Saalbach; Julia Karbach

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105515

Executive functions in mono- and bilingual children: Factor structure and relations with fluid intelligence

J Exp Child Psychol. 2022 Dec:224:105515. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105515. Epub 2022 Aug 4.

Authors

Verena E Johann¹, Susanne Enke², Catherine Gunzenhauser³, Tanja Könen⁴, Henrik Saalbach², Julia Karbach⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, 76829 Landau in der Pfalz, Germany; Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive of Children at Risk (IDeA), 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Electronic address: johann@uni-landau.de.
² Department of Educational Psychology, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany; Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany.
³ Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University, 04109 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Educational Sciences, University of Freiburg, 79085 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.
⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, 76829 Landau in der Pfalz, Germany; Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive of Children at Risk (IDeA), 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Department of Psychology, RWTH Aachen University, 52062 Aachen, Germany.
⁵ Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, 76829 Landau in der Pfalz, Germany; Center for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive of Children at Risk (IDeA), 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

PMID: 35933882
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105515

Abstract

The effects of bilingualism on executive functions (EFs) and intelligence are still controversially discussed. Most studies have focused on performance differences without considering the underlying structure of cognitive abilities. Thus, we examined whether the structure of EFs and the relations of EFs with intelligence differ between mono- and bilingual children. A total of 240 elementary school children (mean age = 8 years 6 months; 133 monolinguals and 95 bilinguals) performed two tasks measuring working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and fluid intelligence, respectively. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that one common EF factor provided the best fit to the data in both language groups, indicating that bilingualism is not associated with differences in the EF structure at this age. Moreover, there were no latent performance differences in either EFs or intelligence between mono- and bilingual children. However, we found a stronger relation between a common EF factor and fluid intelligence in bilingual children as compared with monolingual children, implying a closer coupling of EFs and intelligence abilities in bilingual children. This contributes to explaining the previous heterogeneous findings on the task level because more closely coupled cognitive functioning can be slightly beneficial for some tasks and irrelevant or even slightly obstructive for others.

Keywords: Bilingualism; Children; Development; Executive functions; Factor structure; Intelligence.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Child
Executive Function* / physiology
Humans
Intelligence
Language
Memory, Short-Term
Multilingualism*