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

Source Publication (e.g., journal title)

PLOS One

Authors

Nils Jaekel, University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleFollow
Julia Jaekel, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Jessica Willard, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Birgit Leyendecker, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-17-2019

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0209981

Abstract

Recent research has increasingly questioned the bilingual advantage for executive func- tions (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 Turk- ish 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.

Comments

This article was published openly thanks to the University of Tennessee Open Publishing Support Fund.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Recommended Citation

Jaekel N, Jaekel J, Willard J, Leyendecker B (2019) No evidence for effects of Turkish immigrant children‘s bilingualism on executive functions. PLoS ONE 14(1): e0209981. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209981

Submission Type

Publisher's Version