Effect of bilingualism on infants’ cognitive flexibility

Abstract

Research suggests that bilinguals often outperform monolinguals on tasks that tap into executive functions, such as those requiring conflict resolution and cognitive flexibility. Recently, better attentional control has been detected in infants as young as 6 months, thereby providing a possible basis for a cognitive benefit before language production. The goal of the present study was to examine if cognitive flexibility is more advanced in bilingual infants. A detour reaching task assessing conflict resolution, a delayed response task assessing shifting, and a multiple location task assessing maintaining, were administered to 17-month-old infants. The main findings revealed that being bilingual did not improve performance on any of the executive function tasks. Furthermore, current exposure to a second language or language proficiency did not impact executive functioning. We conclude that a bilingual advantage in cognitive flexibility may not be present before children have enough experience in code switching.