The effects of bilingualism on preschoolers' private speech

Abstract

This study was designed to examine the effects of bilingualism on the development of self-regulatory private speech. The sample consisted of 34 Spanish-speaking preschoolers learning English as a second language in the context of a bilingual preschool program in El Paso, Texas. Protocols of spontaneous private speech were obtained with video recorders while children worked by themselves in a corner of the preschool classroom on block design, classification, and story-sequencing tasks. Instructions were given bilingually, in order to encourage the use of both languages within the experimental setting. Results show that the private speech of bilingual preschoolers appears to develop normally: Namely, it follows a curvilinear relation to mental age, increases with task difficulty, and is gradually subvocalized in the form of whispers and mutterings. The findings suggest that the experience of learning a second language in the context of an additive bilingual preschool program has positive effects both on the frequency of private speech and on the number of diverse functions for which it is used. No evidence was found, however, in support of the hypothesis that bilingual children use their two languages to “code switch” while working on challenging cognitive tasks.