Abstract

The bilingual cognitive advantage states that bilinguals exhibit greater executive function (EF) abilities than monolinguals. This advantage has been reported in children as young as 6 months old yet has failed to be consistently replicated. Given that the bulk of the literature has used correlational designs, the present study adopted a training design which aimed to determine whether teaching monolingual children a second language will lead to greater increases in EF than if taught words in their native language. Two groups of children completed a 12-week online training program during which 9 translation equivalents (TEs; experimental condition) or 9 novel words in their native language (control condition) were taught weekly. Participants’ EF was compared pre- and post-intervention using the Early Executive Functions Questionnaire, which assesses working memory (WM), flexibility (FX), inhibitory control (IC), regulation, and cognitive executive function (CEF, which is a factor that loads onto WM, FX, and IC). Word learning was assessed weekly with a forced choice task based on pointing or touch. Results suggest that learning TEs is more difficult than learning new words in one’s native vocabulary. Results also indicate that although the total sample significantly increased in IC, FX, WM, and CEF from pre- to post-intervention there was no time by condition interaction indicating that the groups EF skills grew equivalently. Finally, only learning TEs was associated with improvement in working memory. To conclude, our results do not support a bilingual advantage at 25 months but suggest a link between second language acquisition and WM.