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. 2019 Jan 17;14(1):e0209981.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0209981. eCollection 2019.

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

Nils Jaekel  1 , Julia Jaekel  2 , Jessica Willard  3 , Birgit Leyendecker  3
Affiliations

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

Nils Jaekel et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Recent research has increasingly questioned the bilingual advantage for executive functions (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 Turkish 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.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Structural equation model 1 (SEM) of Turkish immigrant and German monolingual, non-immigrant children‘s (N = 337) executive functions.
Please note: for simplicity, error terms are not shown.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Structural equation model 2 testing effects of Turkish immigrant children’s (N = 242) bilingual language environment and proficiency on executive functions.
Please note: for simplicity, error terms are not shown.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Publication types

Grants and funding

The data was collected in the Social Integration of Migrant Children: Uncovering Family and School Factors Promoting Resilience (SIMCUR) project which was funded by the New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe (NORFACE) (http://www.norface-migration.org/currentprojectdetail.php?proj=9). Funding for open access to this research was provided by University of Tennessee’s Open Publishing Support Fund. The grant was awarded to B.L (NORFACE 292). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.