Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:17:27.290Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The measurement of bilingualism and its relationship to cognitive ability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Christian R. Lemmon  and
Judith P. Goggin
Christian R. Lemmon
Affiliation:
The University of Mississippi
Judith P. Goggin*
Affiliation:
The University of Texas, El Paso
*
Judith Goggin, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968-0553
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present experiments explored various measures of English and Spanish language ability and compared monolingual and bilingual subjects on tests of cognitive skill. Language ability was assessed in Experiment 1. These measures were found to be highly correlated with each other, with at least two factors needed to describe the associations among the tests in each language. In Experiment 2, subjects were given tests of cognitive skill. To be included in this study, all subjects were required to show adequate understanding of English and were divided into monolingual and bilingual groups on the basis of their Spanish abilities. Monolinguals scored higher than bilinguals on most of the measures of cognitive skill, but subsequent comparisons of the monolinguals with high and low bilingual subgroups suggested that the differences were attributable to those subjects characterized as low bilinguals.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 133 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Albert, M. L., & Obler, L. K. (1978). The bilingual brain. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Balkan, L. (1970). Les effets du bilinguisme français-anglais sur les aptitudes intellectuelles. Brussels: Aimav.Google Scholar
Ben-Zeev, S. (1977). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive strategy and cognitive development. Child Development, 48, 1009–1018.Google Scholar
Carringer, D. C. (1974). Creative thinking abilities of Mexican youth. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 5, 492–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cattell, R. B., & Cattell, A. K. S. (1963). Handbook for the individual or group Culture Fair Intelligence Test. Champaign, IL: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1976). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth: A synthesis of research findings and explanatory hypotheses. Working Papers on Bilingualism, 9, 1–43.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1978). Metalinguistic development of children in bilingual education programs: Data from Irish and Canadian Ukrainian-English programs. In Paradis, M. (Ed.), The Fourth Locus Forum 1977. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 222–251.Google Scholar
Darcy, N. T. (1963). Bilingualism and the measurement of intelligence: Review of a decade of research. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 103, 259–282.Google Scholar
DaSilva, Z. S. (1982). On with Spanish (3rd ed.). New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
DeFilippis, N. A., & McCampbell, E. (1979). Manual for the Booklet Category Test. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
DeFilippis, N. A., McCampbell, E., & Rogers, P. (1979). Development of a booklet form of the Category Test: Normative and validity data. Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology, 1, 339–342.Google Scholar
Diaz, R. M. (1983). Thought and two languages: The impact of bilingualism on cognitive development. In Gordon, E. W. (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 10, pp. 23–54). Washington, DC: AERA.Google Scholar
Ervin, S. M. (1961). Learning and recall in bilinguals. American Journal of Psychology, 74, 446–451.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feldman, C., & Shen, M. (1971). Some language-related cognitive advantages of bilingual five year olds. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 118, 235–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, R. A., & Romkin, N. R. (1934). The English handicap of junior high school pupils from foreign speaking homes, and remedial suggestions. Journal of Educational Research, 27, 412–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gekoski, W. L., Jacobson, J. Z., & Frazao-Brown, P. (1982). Visual masking and linguistic independence in bilinguals. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 36, 108–116.Google Scholar
Glasser, A. J., & Zimmerman, I. L. (1967). Clinical interpretation of the Wechsler Intelligence Sclae for Children. New York: Grune & Stratton.Google Scholar
Goggin, J. P., & Wickens, D. D. (1971). Proactive interference and language change in short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 10, 453–458.Google Scholar
Guilford, J. P. (1967). The nature of human intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Hakuta, K., & Diaz, R. M. (1985). The relationship between degree of bilingualism and cognitive ability: A critical discussion and some new longitudinal data. In Nelson, K. E. (Ed.), Children's language (Vol. 5). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hartigan, J. A. (1975). Clustering algorithms. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Humphreys, L. G., & Montanelli, R. G. Jr., (1975). An investigation of the parallel analysis criterion for determining the number of common factors. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 10, 193–205.Google Scholar
lanco-Worrell, A. D. (1972). Bilingualism and cognitive development. Child Development, 43, 1390–1400.Google Scholar
Jones, W. R., & Stewart, W. A. (1951). Bilingualism and verbal intelligence. British Journal of Psychology, 4, 3–8.Google Scholar
Kolers, P. A. (1963). Interlingual word associations. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2, 291–300.Google Scholar
Kolers, P. A., & Gonzalez, E. (1980). Memory for words, synonyms, and translations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 53–65.Google Scholar
Lambert, W. E., Havelka, J., & Gardner, R. C. (1959). Linguistic manifestations of bilingualism. American Journal of Psychology, 72, 77–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lezak, M. S. (1976). Neuropsychological assessment. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
López, M. (1977). Bilingual memory research: Implications for bilingual education. In Martinez, J. L. Jr., (Ed.), Chicana psychology (pp. 127–140). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
López, M., & Young, R. (1974). The linguistic interdependence of bilinguals. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102, 981–983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacGinitie, W. H. (1978). Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Macnamara, J. T. (1966). Bilingualism and primary education: A study of Irish experience. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Macnamara, J. T. (1967). The bilingual's linguistic performance – A psychological overview. Journal of Social Issues, 23, 58–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macnamara, J. T. (1969). How can one measure the extent of a person's bilingual proficiency? In Kelly, L. G. (Ed.), Description and measurement of bilingualism: An international seminar. University of Moncton, June 6–14, 1967 (pp. 80–97). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
McCormack, P. D. (1974). Bilingual linguistic memory: Independence or interdependence; two stores or one? In Carey, S. T. (Ed.), Bilingualism, biculturalism and education. Edmonton: University of Alberta.Google Scholar
Meyer, D. E., & Ruddy, M. G. (1974). Bilingual word recognition: Organization and retrieval of alternative lexical codes. Paper presented to the Eastern Psychological Association, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar
Montanelli, R. G. Jr., & Humphreys, L. G. (1976). Latent roots of random data correlation matrices with squared multiple correlations on the diagonal: A Monte Carlo study. Psychometrika, 41, 341–348.Google Scholar
Padilla, A. M. (1977). Child bilingualism: Insights to issues. In Martinez, J. L. Jr., (Ed.), Chicana psychology (pp. 111–126). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Padilla, A. M., & Ruiz, R. A. (1973). Latino mental health, a review ofthe literature. Washington, DC: US. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Paradis, M. (1986). Foreword. In Vaid, J. (Ed.), Language processing in bilinguals: Psycholinguistic and neuropsychological perspectives (pp. xi–xii). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Peal, E., & Lambert, W. E. (1962). The relation of bilingualism to intelligence. Psychological Monographs, 76, 1–23.Google Scholar
Pinker, S., & Birdsong, D. (1979). Speakers' sensitivity to rules of frozen word order. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 497–508.Google Scholar
Potter, M. C., So, K.-R., von Eckardt, B., & Feldman, L. B. (1984). Lexical and conceptual representation in beginning and proficient bilinguals. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 23, 23–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saer, D. J. (1923). The effects of bilingualism on intelligence. British Journal of Psychology, 14, 25–38.Google Scholar
Sattler, J. M. (1982). Assessment of children's intelligence and special abilities (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Smith, F. (1923). Bilingualism and mental development. British Journal of Psychology, 13, 270–282.Google Scholar
Snodgrass, J. G., & Vanderwart, M. (1980). A standardized set of 260 pictures: Norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 174–215.Google ScholarPubMed
Vernon, P. E. (1961). The structure of human abilities. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1958). The measurement and appraisal of adult intelligence. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1981). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised. New York: The Psychological Corp., Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. C., Merrifield, P. R., & Guilford, J. P. (1969). Scoring guide for the Utility Test Form A. Beverly Hills: Sheridan Psychological Services.Google Scholar