Executive Functions’ Impact on Vocabulary and Verbal Fluency among Mono and Bilingual Preschool-Aged Children

Abstract

Background. The phenomenon of multilingualism and its impact on child developmentare in the spotlight of latter-day psychology, and of utmost importance bothfor theory and practice. Language development is a strong predictor of psychologicalreadiness for school and further academic success. At the same time, children’s masteryof written and oral speech in school education in a multilingual environmenthas several distinctive features. This study was dedicated to examining the influenceof executive functions on the development of the vocabulary aspects of speech (bothactive and passive vocabulary) of mono and bilingual children growing up in a bilingualenvironment.Objective. We aimed to analyze the relationship between bilingualism and languagedevelopment (vocabulary and verbal fluency) and determine which executivefunctions may help overcome the resulting difficulties at preschool age.Design. Both monolingual and bilingual children participated in the study(n = 137 and n = 81, respectively). The children’s ages ranged from 6 to 7 years(M = 78.7 months, SD = 5.87). Two independent General Linear Models (GLM) werebuilt to define which executive functions influenced the vocabulary and verbal fluencyof the mono and bilingual subjects (controlling for age, gender, and non-verbalintelligence as well).Results. The results confirmed that bilingualism is negatively related to languagedevelopment, but showed that verbal working memory significantly helps bilingualscompensate for difficulties in developing vocabulary and verbal fluency.Conclusion. The study demonstrated that the ability to preserve and reproduceverbal information was of more significance for children’s vocabulary and verbal fluencythan their language group (mono or bilingual).