Working Memory Skills in DLD: Does Bilingualism Make a Difference?

Abstract

Recent studies have reported that several cognitive domains benefit from bilingualism, including working memory. The aim of the present study is to specifically explore the effects of bilingual experience on different functions of working memory in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) compared to monolingual children with and without DLD. We therefore investigated n = 42 German speaking monolingual and bilingual children with and without DLD aged six to eight years. We examined two components of working memory often impaired in DLD: verbal short-term memory and the central executive. We expected bilingual children to outperform their monolingual peers. However, our results do not show any advantage of bilingualism since bilingual typically developing (TD) children did not outperform monolingual TD children and bilingual children with DLD did not outperform monolinguals with DLD; this holds for all measures under investigation. The main outcome is that no disadvantage could be found for bilingual children in cognitive functions. Raising a child bilingually does not exacerbate linguistic and cognitive difficulties in children with DLD. However, our preliminary data suggest it does not lead to cognitive advantages in working memory either.