The Effect of Bilingualism on Selective Attention, Interference Suppression and Control in Five and Six Year Old Dutch Preschool Children

Abstract

The present study tried to investigate if bilingualism selectively affects the ability to resolve conflict, and if a difference between monolingual and bilingual children emerges in carefully matched children from the same age when the effect of SES was controlled for. Five and six year old monolingual and bilingual children performed tasks measuring selective attention (Sky Search Task) and interference suppression (Flanker Task). There was a significant difference between the monolingual and bilingual children on selective attention, interference suppression and attentional control, even after controlling for the effect of parental education. Contradictory to the study of Engel de Abreu and colleagues (2012) bilingualism negatively affected the performance of the bilingual children.