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Literacy, metalinguistic, and executive functions processing in bilingual children speakers of similar typology languages in a border area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2021

Talita dos Santos Gonçalves Open the ORCID record for Talita dos Santos Gonçalves [Opens in a new window] ,
Vanisa Fante Viapiana ,
Rochele Paz Fonseca  and
Lilian Cristine Hübner
Talita dos Santos Gonçalves
Affiliation:
Federal Institute of Alagoas – IFAL, Batalha, Alagoas, Brazil
Vanisa Fante Viapiana
Affiliation:
Universidade de Passo Fundo – UPF, Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Psychology Graduate Program (Human Cognition), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul – PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Rochele Paz Fonseca
Affiliation:
Psychology Graduate Program (Human Cognition), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul – PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) – Brasília, Brazil
Lilian Cristine Hübner*
Affiliation:
National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) – Brasília, Brazil Linguistics Graduate Program, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul – PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
*
Address for correspondence: Lilian Cristine Hubner, E-mail: [email protected], [email protected].
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Abstract

This study aimed to analyze whether there are differences between bilingual (Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish) and monolingual (Brazilian Portuguese) school children regarding reading and writing learning achievement, in executive functions (EF) components and metalinguistic abilities. Twenty-three bilingual and 23 monolingual children, aged 6 to 8 years, were assessed in terms of their writing, reading, and metalinguistic abilities, and with verbal and non-verbal tasks testing EF. A bilingual advantage was observed in reading and writing abilities and in 16 of the 44 EF measures, including subcomponents of working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and executive attention, mainly in non-verbal paradigms, while monolingual children outperformed bilingual ones in three scores: counting errors (Five Digits Test), omission of bells (Bells test) and sequential trial B (Trail Making Test). There were moderate and weak effect sizes in metalinguistic subcomponents showing bilingual advantage. Literacy improvement seems to have the potential to increase linguistic and cognitive abilities.

Keywords

bilingualismchildrenexecutive functionsmetalanguageliteracy
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , August 2021 , pp. 758 - 766
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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