The missing explanation of the false‐belief advantage in bilingual children: a longitudinal study

Bilingual preschoolers often perform better than monolingual children on false‐belief understanding. It has been hypothesized that this is due to their enhanced executive function skills, although this relationship has rarely been tested or supported. The current longitudinal study tested whether me...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental science 2018-07, Vol.21 (4), p.e12594-n/a
Main Authors: Diaz, Vanessa, Farrar, M. Jeffrey
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beliefs
Bilingualism
Child Development
Children
Cognitive Ability
Cognitive Processes
English (Second Language)
Executive Function
Inhibition
Language
Language Skills
Longitudinal Studies
Metalinguistics
Monolingualism
Predictor Variables
Preschool Children
Profiles
Second Language Learning
Self Control
Spanish
Statistical Analysis
Testing
Young Children
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Summary:Bilingual preschoolers often perform better than monolingual children on false‐belief understanding. It has been hypothesized that this is due to their enhanced executive function skills, although this relationship has rarely been tested or supported. The current longitudinal study tested whether metalinguistic awareness was responsible for this advantage. Further, we examined the contributions of both executive functioning and language ability to false‐belief understanding by including multiple measures of both. Seventy‐eight children (n = 40 Spanish‐English bilingual; age M = 49.29, SD = 7.38 and, n = 38 English monolingual; age M = 47.75, SD = 6.86) were tested. A year later the children were tested again (n = 22 bilingual, n = 25 monolingual). The results indicated that language and executive function (inhibitory control) at time 1 were related to false belief in monolinguals at time 2. In contrast, bilinguals' metalinguistic performance at time 1 was the sole predictor of false belief at time 2. The different linguistic and cognitive profiles of monolinguals and bilinguals may create different pathways for their development of false‐belief understanding. A video of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/vILn2gKjFxw This longitudinal study examines the predictors of false‐belief reasoning in bilingual and monolingual preschoolers. For bilinguals, only time 1 metalinguistic awareness predicted time 2 false‐belief. In contrast, time 1 executive functioning and language ability were related to monolinguals time 2 false‐belief.
ISSN:1363-755X
1467-7687
1467-7687
DOI:10.1111/desc.12594