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Contributions of nonlinguistic task-shifting to language control in bilingual children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2016

MEGAN GROSS  and
MARGARITA KAUSHANSKAYA
MEGAN GROSS*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
MARGARITA KAUSHANSKAYA
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
*
Address for correspondence: Megan Gross, Language Acquisition & Bilingualism Lab, Waisman Center Room 476, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53705megan.gross@wisc.edu
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Abstract

Language control, bilinguals’ ability to regulate which language is used, has been posited to recruit domain-general cognitive control. However, studies relating language control and cognitive control have yielded mixed results in adults and have not been undertaken in children. The current study examined the contributions of nonlinguistic task-shifting to language control in Spanish–English bilingual children (ages 5–7) during a cued-switch picture-naming task. Language control was assessed at two levels: (1) cross-language errors, which indexed the success of language selection, and (2) naming speed, which indexed the efficiency of lexical selection. Nonlinguistic task-shifting was a robust predictor of children's cross-language errors, reflecting a role for domain-general cognitive control during language selection. However, task-shifting predicted naming speed only in children's non-dominant language, suggesting a more nuanced role for cognitive control in the efficiency of selecting a particular lexical target.

Keywords

bilingualismchildrenlanguage controltask-shiftingcognitive control
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 181 - 194
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported by the NIH Grants R03 DC010465 and R01 DC011750 to Margarita Kaushanskaya and T32 HD049899 and F31 DC013920 to support Megan Gross. The authors would like to thank Daniel Bolt for his guidance in selecting statistical analyses and the members of the Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab for their comments during the preparation of this manuscript. We are grateful to Ellen Anderson, Michelle Batko, Milijana Buac, Katie Engh, Regina Estrada, Kiran Gosal, Allison Holt, Liz Jaramillo, Eva Lopez, Breana Mudrock, Nivi Nair, Sarah Naumann, Emily Silverberg, and Kris Wright for their assistance with task design, data collection and coding. In addition, we thank Sara Lopez, Eduardo Montoya (Iglesia Presbiteriana Ebenezer), and Gerson and Lillian Amaya (Iglesia Evangelica Haziel) for providing community testing space. Finally, we appreciate all of the children and parents who made this research possible by participating in the study.

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