SynthesisFrontiers in psychology2020
The Impact of Bilingualism on Executive Functions in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review Based on the PRISMA Method.
Synthesis in Frontiers in psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- ASL Proficiency Predicts Advanced Visual-Spatial Processing Independent of Age of Acquisition.Cognitive science · 2026Article
- Bilingualism Enhances Metalinguistic Awareness in Autism: Extending the Two-Dimensional Grammaticality Judgment Task.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- Language switching ability and executive function development in English learners: a longitudinal investigation of bilingual cognitive control.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Effects of Bilingualism on Executive Function of Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Scoping Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Multilingualism impacts children's executive function and core autism symptoms.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2024Article
- Assessing the Impact of Bilingualism on the Linguistic Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Greece: A Scoping Review.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Article
- The effects of heritage multilingualism on foreign language learning: a comparison of children with typical language development and developmental language disorder.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Phonemic verbal fluency in non-WEIRD populations: Demographic differences in performance in the Controlled Oral Word Association Test-FAS.African journal of psychological assessment · 2024Article
- The impact of multiple language exposure on cognition during childhood: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Multilingualism, multicultural experience, cognition, and creativity.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Dual Language Learning Predicts Improved Executive Functioning in Youth with Autism.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2022Article
- The swerve: How childhood bilingualism changed from liability to benefit.Developmental psychology · 2022Article
- Predicting multilingual effects on executive function and individual connectomes in children: An ABCD study.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Revisiting the Influences of Bilingualism and Developmental Language Disorder on Children's Nonverbal Processing Speed.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2021Article
- Characterizing Bilingual Effects on Cognition: The Search for Meaningful Individual Differences.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Early Numeracy and Literacy Skills Among Monolingual and Bilingual Kindergarten Children.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Language-Related Skills in Bilingual Children With Specific Learning Disorders.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Approximately half of the world's population is bilingual or multilingual. The bilingual advantage theory claims that the constant need to control both known languages, that are always active in the brain, to use the one suitable for each specific context improves cognitive functions and specifically executive functions. However, some authors do not agree on the bilingual effect, given the controversial results of studies on this topic. This systematic review aims to summarize the results of studies on the relationship between bilingualism and executive functions. The review was conducted according to PRISMA-statement through searches in the scientific database PsychINFO, PsycARTICLES, MEDLINE, and PUBMED. Studies included in this review had at least one bilingual and monolingual group, participants aged between 5 and 17 years, and at least one executive function measure. Studies on second language learners, multilingual people, and the clinical population were excluded. Fifty-three studies were included in the systematic review. Evidence supporting the bilingual effect seems to appear when assessing inhibition and cognitive flexibility, but to disappear when working memory is considered. The inconsistent results of the studies do not allow drawing definite conclusions on the bilingual effect. Further studies are needed; they should consider the role of some modulators (e.g., language history and context, methodological differences) on the observed results.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.