Bilingualism Enriches the Poor: Enhanced Cognitive Control in Low-Income Minority Children

Research question: Living in poverty is often accompanied by conditions that can negatively
influence cognitive development (Noble, Norman, & Farah, 2005). Is it possible that being
bilingual might counteract these effects? This study explores whether the cognitive
advantage associated with bilingualism in executive functioning (Bialystok, Craik, Green, &
Gollan, 2009) extends to young immigrant children challenged by poverty and, if it does,
which specific processes are most affected.
Methods: 80 second graders from low-income families participated in the study. Half of the
children were first or second generation immigrants to Luxembourg, originally from
Northern Portugal, who spoke both Luxembourgish and Portuguese on a daily basis. The
other matched half of children lived in Northern Portugal and spoke only Portuguese.
Children completed measures of vocabulary and visuo-spatial tests of working memory,
abstract reasoning, selective attention, and interference suppression.
Results: Two broad cognitive factors of executive functioning—representation (abstract
reasoning and working memory) and control (selective attention and interference