Journal Article

The Impact of Bilingualism on Everyday Executive Functions of English-Arabic Autistic Children: Through a Parent-Teacher Lens

MacPherson, Sarah E, Sharaan Shereen, Fletcher-Watson, Sue

2022

Overview

There is evidence that autistic children may have reduced executive function skills, contributing to day-to-day difficulties, but much remains unknown regarding the influence of bilingualism. We investigated its influence on sustained attention, interference control, flexible switching and working memory, in Arabic-English autistic (n = 27) and typically developing peers (n = 53) children, aged 5 to 12 years old. Parents and teachers completed rating measures assessing children’s daily EF abilities. Results showed generalized positive effects for bilingual autistic children relative to their monolingual peers across all EF domains, but using parent ratings only. The findings indicate that bilingualism does not negatively impact the executive function skills of autistic children, and that it might mitigate difficulties faced on a day-to-day basis.

• Publisher: Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Arabic language / Attention Control / Autism / Autistic children / Bilingualism / Child Development / Children / Communication Skills / English language / Environment / Evidence / Executive function / Individual Differences / Language Acquisition / Language Proficiency / Learning transfer / Monolingualism / Oral Language / Parent-child relations / Parents / Parents & parenting / Peers / Quality of Life / Ratings & rankings / Second Languages / Semitic Languages / Short term memory / Skills / Sustained attention / Teachers