Gender and contextual variations in self-perceived cognitive competence.

School performance and cognitive competence can be conceptualized as social and relational constructs. Thus, we expect their association to vary as a function of other socially-embedded variables which have proven meaningful in the academic domain. The present study takes a critical theory approach to assess gender-related and contextual variability in the association between peer-assessed school performance and self-perceived cognitive competence. The sample consisted of 719 preadolescents (M age = 9.5 years, range = 9 to 12.5 years) living in lower- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Montreal, Canada and Barranquilla, Columbia. Multigroup comparisons revealed that (a) peer-assessed school competence was more strongly associated with self-perceived cognitive competence for upper-middle-class than lower-middle-class participants from Barranquilla, whereas the opposite pattern was observed with Montreal participants, and (b) that the association between communal orientation and self-perceived cognitive competence was stronger for girls than for boys across the sample, especially in the upper-middle-class school in Montreal. These findings highlight the nuanced degree of gender differences in preadolescents' perceived academic competence and emphasize the role of SES in shaping self-perceptions.

Are there Cognitive Benefits of Code-switching in Bilingual Children? A longitudinal study.

The current study explored bilingual parent and child code-switching patterns over time. Concurrent and predictive models of code-switching behaviour on executive function outcomes were also examined in a sample of 29 French-English bilinguals at 36 (Wave 1) and 61 (Wave 2) months of age. We investigated whether code-switching typology in a single-language context predicted executive function performance at each wave independently, and whether growth in code-switching frequency across waves predicted executive function performance at Wave 2. At both waves, parents and children participated in two free play sessions (in English and French), followed by a battery of executive function tasks administered in the dominant language. Results indicate more frequent code-switching from the non-dominant to the dominant language in children, and that children code-switch to fill lexical gaps. Results also suggest that less frequent code-switching in a single-language context is associated with better inhibitory control skills during the preschool period.

Knowing who knows: Metacognitive and causal learning abilities guide infants' selective social learning.

Given the widespread interest in the development of children's selective social learning, there is mounting evidence suggesting that infants prefer to learn from competent informants (Poulin-Dubois & Brosseau-Liard, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2016, 25). However, little research has been dedicated to understanding how this selectivity develops. The present study investigated whether causal learning and precursor metacognitive abilities govern discriminant learning in a classic word-learning paradigm. Infants were exposed to a speaker who accurately (reliable condition) or inaccurately (unreliable condition) labeled familiar objects and were subsequently tested on their ability to learn a novel word from the informant. The predictive power of causal learning skills and precursor metacognition (as measured through decision confidence) on infants' word learning was examined across both reliable and unreliable conditions. Results suggest that infants are more inclined to accept an unreliable speaker's testimony on a word learning task when they also lack confidence in their own knowledge on a task measuring their metacognitive ability. Additionally, when uncertain, infants draw on causal learning abilities to better learn the association between a label and a novel toy. This study is the first to shed light on the role of causal learning and precursor metacognitive judgments in infants' abilities to engage in selective trust.

Translation Equivalents Facilitate Lexical Access in Very Young Bilinguals.

The present study investigated the impact of translation equivalents (TE) on lexical processing in a sample of 36 French-English bilingual toddlers at 22-months of age. Children were administered the Computerized Comprehension Task (CCT; Friend & Keplinger, 2003) in each language and parents completed the MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) in both English and French across two visits (one language per visit). Correct trials on the CCT were identified and classified into one of two categories: words with a known TE as reported on the CDI and words without a known TE on the CDI. Reaction times for correct trials were then averaged in each category and compared for each of the bilinguals' languages. Interestingly, children were faster to retrieve words with a known TE on the CDI than words with no known TE. The present findings suggest that the translation facilitation effects reported in adult bilinguals are also present in very young bilinguals.

Dog or chien? Translation equivalents in the receptive and expressive vocabularies of young French-English bilinguals.

In order to address gaps in the literature surrounding the acquisition of translation equivalents (TEs) in young bilinguals, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, TEs were measured in the expressive vocabularies of thirty-four French-English bilinguals at 1;4, 1;10, and 2;6 using the MacArthur Bates CDI. Children's acquisition of TEs occurred gradually, with more balanced ratios of exposure and vocabulary associated with larger proportions of TEs at each wave. Experiment 2 compared a direct measure of TE comprehension with parent report of the same set of words. Results showed that parents may over-report children's TE comprehension, as our sample of two-year-old French-English bilinguals (n = 20) comprehended fewer TEs on a direct measure of receptive vocabulary than parents reported on the vocabulary checklist. The present study provides an original contribution to the literature on bilingual vocabulary development by employing both a longitudinal design and a direct measure of TE comprehension.

The effects of bilingual growth on toddlers' executive function.

The mastery of two languages provides bilingual speakers with cognitive benefits over monolinguals, particularly on cognitive flexibility and selective attention. However, extant research is limited to comparisons between monolinguals and bilinguals at a single point in time. This study investigated whether growth in bilingual proficiency, as shown by an increased number of translation equivalents (TEs) over a 7-month period, improves executive function. We hypothesized that bilingual toddlers with a larger increase of TEs would have more practice in switching across lexical systems, boosting executive function abilities. Expressive vocabulary and TEs were assessed at 24 and 31 months of age. A battery of tasks, including conflict, delay, and working memory tasks, was administered at 31 months. As expected, we observed a task-specific advantage in inhibitory control in bilinguals. More important, within the bilingual group, larger increases in the number of TEs predicted better performance on conflict tasks but not on delay tasks. This unique longitudinal design confirms the relation between executive function and early bilingualism.