Italian Monolinguals Research Articles

From color naming to color perception: Cross‐linguistic differences of the chromatic information processing in monolingual and bilingual speakers

AbstractThere has been long running debate about the interaction of language and perception. In this context, bilingual people have often shown benefits, due to their double‐active linguistic system, in cognitive functions, like inhibition, attention, and memory, which are central for visual perception. Color naming and categorization are domains for studying cross‐linguistic effects, which arise from conceptual and perceptual variations across speakers of different languages. In this study, we compared the ‘blue’ lexicon of highly proficient French‐Italian bilinguals to monolingual speakers of the corresponding languages. Prior studies have shown that Italian has two basic color terms for the blue area of color space: one denotes light blue hues (azzurro) and the other dark blue hues (blu), whilst French, with only one basic term bleu, lacks this distinction. We used a Stroop test to probe differences in perception and categorization of blue in bi‐ and monolingual speakers. We found that Italian monolinguals name the ink color more accurately and more rapidly when the word blu is rendered in dark blue ink (corresponding to the word blu) than when it is printed in light blue ink (corresponding to azzurro), since the latter represents an incongruent condition for them. This ‘category effect’ does not exist for French monolingual speakers. Our bilinguals' results demonstrate that, despite the emergence of a specific in‐between perceptual behavior, bilinguals generally performed like Italian monolinguals. These outcomes confirm the hypothesis that their second language categories (Italian) dominate their native language (French), attesting that lexical distinctions influence perceptual faculties in general. However, the ratio of the interference effect (longer reaction times for incongruent stimuli compared to control stimuli) and the facilitation effect (shorter reaction times for congruent stimuli compared to control stimuli) is not the same for bilinguals and monolinguals. The highest magnitude in the facilitation effect was revealed for bilinguals, whereas the highest magnitude in the interference effect was revealed for Italian monolingual speakers. This phenomenon adds evidence to the existence of enhanced bilingual cognitive control abilities.

Morphological and Inhibitory Skills in Monolingual and Bilingual Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder.

This study examined the language and nonverbal inhibitory control skills of Italian monolingual and bilingual typically developing (TD) preschoolers with Italian as their second language and of age-matched monolingual and bilingual peers with developmental language disorder (DLD). Four groups of preschoolers were enrolled: 30 TD Italian monolinguals, 24 TD bilinguals, 19 Italian monolinguals with DLD, and 19 bilinguals with DLD. All children were assessed in Italian on vocabulary, receptive morphosyntax, and morphological markers for DLD in the Italian language (i.e., third-person verb inflections, definite articles, third-person direct-object clitic pronouns, simple prepositions) and nonverbal inhibitory control skills. Group performance was compared using a series of one-way analyses of variance. Monolingual and bilingual children with DLD achieved significantly lower performance in all language measures compared to both TD monolingual and bilingual children. However, TD bilinguals, although comprehensively showing better language skills than monolinguals with DLD, achieved a performance closer to that of monolinguals with DLD but significantly higher than that of bilinguals with DLD. Both TD monolinguals and bilinguals showed better results than both DLD groups in inhibitory control tasks, particularly in the interference suppression task. This study provides a picture of language and inhibitory control characteristics of children with various language profiles and adds to the literature on potential markers of DLD among bilingual children. These results suggest that the assessment of nonlinguistic markers, which are associated with language impairment, could be a useful approach to better specify the diagnosis of DLD and reduce cases of misdiagnosis in the context of bilingualism.

The role of minority language bilingualism in spotting agreement attraction errors: Evidence from Italian varieties.

Bilingual adaptations remain a subject of ongoing debate, with varying results reported across cognitive domains. A possible way to disentangle the apparent inconsistency of results is to focus on the domain of language processing, which is what the bilingual experience boils down to. This study delves into the role of the bilingual experience on the processing of agreement mismatches. Given the underrepresentation of minority bilingual speakers of non-standard varieties, we advance a unique comparative perspective that includes monolinguals, standard language bilinguals, and different groups of minority language bilinguals, taking advantage of the rich linguistic diversity of the Italian peninsula. This comparative approach can reveal the impact of various sociolinguistic aspects of the bilingual experience across different bilingual trajectories. We developed an auditory acceptability judgement task in Italian, featuring Subject-Verb agreement mismatches. Participants evaluated the stimuli on a 5-point Likert scale and reaction times were recorded. The results do not reveal significant differences between the speakers of standard languages: Italian monolinguals and Italian-Spanish bilinguals. Instead, significant differences are found between monolinguals and the two groups of minority language bidialectals, as well as between the bidialectal groups themselves: Italian-Pavese bidialectals were faster than both Italian-Agrigentino bidialectals and Italian monolinguals, while Italian-Agrigentino bidialectals were less accurate than both Italian-Pavese bidialectals and Italian monolinguals. This intricate picture is explained through variables associated with second language use and language switching. Our findings suggest that if bilingualism is viewed as a yes/no phenotype, it is unavoidable that the bilingual experience will remain a mystery linked to intensely debated results. If, however, one accepts that bilingual adaptations are shaped by the environmental ecology of each trajectory, variation across bilingual processing outcomes is unsurprising. Overall, we argue that specific sociolinguistic factors behind each bilingual experience can reveal where bilingual adaptations on language and cognition stem from.

Relationship between oral narrative and vocabulary skills among bilingual language-minority children and their monolingual peers in primary school

Aim: This study investigates whether the conditions of bilingual language-minority (BLM) children versus monolingualism have different effects on oral narrative and vocabulary skills in the societal language (SL-Italian) and on the predictive interrelations between the two skills. Methodology: A total of 112 primary school children (44 % BLM L1-Chinese, L2-Italian and 56 % Italian monolinguals) aged 7–11 years ( M age = 113 months, SD = 12.03; 44 girls, 68 boys) performed an oral story-narration task and a vocabulary task. The purpose of the former was to assess the children’s textual (structure, coherence) and language (cohesion, word productivity) competences, while the latter test assessed their ability to define written words by implementing different cognitive-linguistic processes. A parental questionnaire was used to obtain information regarding age, socioeconomic status (SES), and home language exposure. Data analysis: We compared BLM and monolinguals’ lexical competence and oral narrative ability in an independent t-test analysis. We further verified the relationship between the lexical and oral narrative abilities in Spearman bivariate correlations analyses and investigated their interrelations in a stepwise regression model. Age and SES were controlled for. Findings: BLM children fall significantly behind their monolingual peers on textual structure and lexical skills. Meanwhile, their textual and language competences in stories are similar. In the total sample and monolingual group, lexical skills are positively correlated with the text structure. Results of stepwise regression analyses show that lexical skills completely mediate the effect of BLM versus monolingualism on text structure. Originality: Results on school-aged BLM (L1-Chinese, L2-Italian) children’s oral narrative, vocabulary skills, and their relations extend previous research on bilingualism. Significance: The scarce narrative structure in BLM children’s stories is related to limited vocabulary input. High-level textual processing difficulties may result from the high cognitive effort of managing both the choosing of adequate words in L2 and composing an oral story concurrently.

Phonological Awareness across Child Populations: How Bilingualism and Dyslexia Interact

Phonological awareness is a complex and multifaceted skill which plays an essential role in the development of an individual’s language and literacy abilities. Phonological skills are indeed dramatically impaired in people with dyslexia, at any age and across languages, whereas their development in bilinguals is less clear. In addition, the interaction between bilingualism and dyslexia in this domain is still under-investigated. The aim of this paper is to provide new experimental evidence on this topic by exploring the phonological competence in Italian of monolingual and bilingual children with and without dyslexia. To this purpose, we developed three tasks, assessing nonword repetition, rhyme detection and spoonerisms, which we administered to 148 10-year-old children in two distinct studies. In Study 1, we found that two groups of L2 Italian typically developing bilinguals, having either Arabic or Romanian as L1, performed similarly to Italian monolinguals in all measures, pointing to absence of both bilingualism-related and L1-related effects in these tasks. In Study 2, we administered the same tasks to four groups of children: Italian monolinguals with dyslexia, Italian monolingual typically developing children, L2 Italian bilinguals with dyslexia and L2 Italian bilingual typically developing children. Results showed that children with dyslexia, both monolingual and bilingual, exhibited significantly more difficulties than typically developing children in all three tasks, whereas bilinguals, consistent with Study 1, performed similarly to their monolingual peers. In addition, no negative effects of bilingualism in dyslexia were found, indicating that being bilingual does not provide additional difficulties to children with dyslexia.

Crosslinguistic Interference in Simultaneous Acquisition of Turkish and Italian

AbstractThis study compared the acceptability judgment task (AJT) and translation task (TT) in 10 simultaneous Turkish–Italian bilinguals with age-matched Turkish and Italian monolinguals as a control group. The position of subjects occurring with unaccusative verbs was investigated as the linguistic property. The results of the AJT in Turkish revealed no significant difference between the groups. However, in the Italian AJT, high variability was found in the younger bilinguals. Only bilinguals could participate in the TT. The participants, while translating into Turkish, always produced pragmatically appropriate sentences. In the case of translation to Italian, a significant effect correlated with the position of the subject in the Turkish stimulus was found.

A characterization of language development in heritage speakers

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the assessment of working memory and linguistic skills in 21 Italian–Russian speaking bilingual children who were born in Italy and inherited Russian from their parents. Their performance was compared to that of 21 monolingual Russian-speaking and 21 monolingual Italian-speaking peers. For the assessment of the two languages (Russian and Italian) in bilinguals and the respective languages (Russian OR Italian) in monolinguals, the equivalent forms of the same battery of tests were used. Overall, the bilinguals showed enhanced verbal working memory with respect to Italian monolinguals but not Russian ones. The lexical skills of the participants in the bilingual group, as measured via semantic fluency, naming and lexical comprehension, appeared to be rather limited in Russian when compared to those of the monolingual group. Their vocabulary was mainly made of words with medium-to-high frequency. Passive, reversible and negative sentences appeared to be the most difficult for the participants who inherited Russian from their parents. The findings are discussed in the light of current theories of heritage languages acquisition.

Anaphora resolution in L1 Italian in a Swedish-speaking environment before and after L1 re-immersion: A study on attrition

This study investigates whether L1 attrition effects on anaphora resolution decrease with L1 re-immersion. A group of 20 Italian-Swedish late bilinguals was tested once before and once after their summer vacation in Italy, and compared with a control group of 21 Italian monolinguals that was also tested once before and once after a similar time interval. Both groups assigned overt and null pronouns to a subject or an object antecedent in a self-paced comprehension task. The results of the study suggest that attrition affects null pronouns, an outcome inconsistent with previous findings wherein attrition effects were limited to Italian overt pronouns (e.g., Tsimpli et al., 2004). This outcome supports the hypothesis that attrition affects processing rather than representations. Moreover, in the second session, both groups improved in terms of antecedent assignment and response times. This finding suggests a task effect rather than a re-immersion effect.

Türkçeyi göçmenlik ortamında yetişkinken öğrenen anadili İtalyanca olanların artgönderim yorumu

The research carried out in the recent years
 indicates that the structures at the syntax-discourse interface fall in a
 vulnerable domain for bilinguals (Sorace, 2011 for review). It has been
 proposed that cross-linguistic interference occurs when syntactic features of
 the two languages partially overlap (Müller & Hulk 2001 among others) due
 to the rise of optionality. Subsequent studies (e.g., Sorace & Serratrice,
 2009; Serratrice et al., 2012) found a cross-linguistic interference in
 bilinguals speaking two typologically similar languages. Recently, Sorace
 (2016) has proposed that interference may be due to the cognitive load of processing
 two languages. The present study analyzes the data collected by employing an Acceptability Judgment Test on the
 interpretation of backward anaphora in complex sentences by twelve native
 Italian speakers, who had learned Turkish as adults in immigration setting,
 with twelve matched Italian monolinguals as a control group. It is assumed that
 Italian and Turkish do not differ with respect to the antecedent biases of null
 and overt subject pronouns in the contexts under investigation. The focus of this
 study is on the acceptability of an overt/null subject in intrasentential
 anaphora with three conditions: general sentences, quantifier sentences, and
 subjunctive sentences. Our results show that bilingual speakers reject,
 significantly more, the null subject in an embedded subjunctive sentence as
 referring to the subject in the matrix sentence than the monolinguals. These
 data seem to contradict previous studies (Sorace & Filiaci 2006), wherein
 it was found that monolinguals and bilinguals differ in the interpretation of
 an overt pronoun. A discussion on why a null pronoun is vulnerable in
 Italian-Turkish bilinguals is needed. Though this study reinvigorates the
 hypothesis that the structures at a syntax-discourse interface are vulnerable
 and that bilingual processing cost may contribute to cross-linguistic
 interference.

Multilingual Competence Influences Answering Strategies in Italian-German Speakers.

The present study aims at analyzing the role of nativeness, the amount of input in L1 acquisition and the multilingual competence in the performance of Italian–German bilingual speakers. We compare novel data from the performance of adult L2 learners (L1: Italian; late L2: German) and that of heritage speakers (heritage language: Italian; majority language: German) to previous data from monolingual speakers of Italian. The comparison deals with the produced word order at the syntax-discourse interface in sentences containing New Information Subjects in answers to questions that prompt the identification of the clausal subject. Overall, adult L2 speakers and heritage speakers perform alike but crucially differently from Italian monolinguals. These data reveal that multilingual proficiency determines an increased variety in the adopted answering strategies; in particular, the German-like strategy is active in Italian. Nativeness alone is thus no guarantee for a homogeneous performance across groups, nor do we find similar patterns of performance in speakers who grew up as monolinguals. Data also show heritage speakers’ sensitivity to verb classes, with answering strategies varying in accordance with the verb argument structure. Participants’ productions reveal an interesting relation in sentences with transitive verbs between subject position (pre-/postverbal) and object form (lexical DP/clitic pronoun).

Objects of transitive verbs in Italian as a heritage language in contact with German

AbstractThis paper seeks to close a gap in the ongoing research on heritage languages (HL), their acquisition, and the nature of transfer in HL with a study on a hitherto understudied language combination, namely Italian heritage speakers (HS) raised in Germany with two native languages. The current study compares data from spontaneous speech of these HS with speech data from native speakers of Italian who immigrated to Germany as adults with German as L2, and Italian monolinguals. Analyses of Italian objects reveal that the HS show native knowledge about lexical options of object omissions and their pragmatic identification, and of object clitic use. The results indicate no evidence for covert transfer with regard to Italian object realization types. Finally, the study leads to the conclusion that Italian HS differ in fewer investigated aspects from Italian monolinguals than L1/L2 speakers.

Objects of transitive verbs in Italian as a heritage language in contact with German

This paper seeks to close a gap in the ongoing research on heritage languages (HL), their acquisition, and the nature of transfer in HL with a study on a hitherto understudied language combination, namely Italian heritage speakers (HS) raised in Germany with two native languages. The current study compares data from spontaneous speech of these HS with speech data from native speakers of Italian who immigrated to Germany as adults with German as L2, and Italian monolinguals. Analyses of Italian objects show that the HS reflect native knowledge about lexical options of object omissions and their pragmatic identification, and of object clitic use. The results indicate no evidence for covert transfer in regards to Italian object realization types. Finally, the study leads to the conclusion that Italian HS differ in fewer investigated aspects from Italian monolinguals than L1/L2 speakers.

Differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in mean diffusivity

Event Abstract Back to Event Differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in mean diffusivity Nandini C. Singh1, Matteo Canini2, Pasquale Della Rosa2, Brendan Weekes3* and Jubin Abutalebi2 1 National Brain Research Centre, India 2 Centre of Cognitive Neuroscience, University Vita Salute San Raffaele,, Italy 3 Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China Recent hypotheses about the effect of second language experience on neuroplasticity have suggested possible differences in white matter microstructure between bilinguals and monolinguals. In this context, mean diffusivity (MD) has emerged as a sensitive measure of neural plasticity. Given that neural plasticity is an important consequence of bilingualism (Green & Abutalebi, 2013), the primary objective of this study was to use MD and associated components axial and radial diffusivity to compare white matter microstructure of bilinguals with monolinguals based on a prediction that exposure to a second language leads to neuroplasticity connecting specific brain regions. Eighteen Hindi-English bilinguals (mean age & SD: 23.94±1.5years) and 18 Italian monolinguals (mean age & SD: 23.45±2.1 years) closely matched for age, levels of education, literacy and SES (Socio Economic Status) were examined. Language proficiency assessments revealed that bilingual subjects were equally proficient in Hindi and English. Diffusion weighted images were acquired using a transverse multi-slice, single-shot, spin echo-planar imaging (EPI) sequence with 35 gradient directions at b-value = 1000 s/mm2 and one b = 0 reference image. After preprocessing, diffusion tensor was fitted onto the corrected images using FMRIB’s FDT toolbox (http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/) which generated diffusion image maps (eigen values (λ1, λ2, and λ3)), fractional anisotropy (FA) and MD, AD λ|| = λ1, RD (λ┴ = (λ2 +λ3)/2)). Voxel-wise statistics were carried out at major tract centres common to all participants using Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS),(Smith et al., 2006).In order to generate additional preliminary insights into the geometry of the underlying white matter structure in bilingual speakers, distributions for mean diffusivity values for bilinguals and monolinguals were also estimated. Higher mean diffusivity (MD) for bilinguals in white matter tracts such as forceps minor and bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus (p=0.05) were observed. There was a high degree of concordance with the tracts seen in MD and RD indicating that the increased mean diffusivity was due to a higher rate of diffusion along the perpendicular as compared to the parallel direction.MD and RD distributions of bilateral SLF in monolinguals and bilinguals showed similar trends as the FA distribution comparison. Our results demonstrate for the first time changes in mean and radial diffusivity, specifically in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus and the forceps minor in bilinguals as compared to monolinguals. We attribute these results to structural neuroplasticity in the bilingual brain as a consequence of consistent and daily use of cognitive systems involved in language control. We speculate that the structural differences found in the SLF reflect to the effects of richer articulatory repertoire required by bilinguals. Keywords: bilingualism, DTI analyses, structural plasticity, Mean diffusivity (MD), Aphasia Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Platform Sessions Topic: Academy of Aphasia Citation: Singh NC, Canini M, Della Rosa P, Weekes B and Abutalebi J (2016). Differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in mean diffusivity. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00131 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 01 May 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016. * Correspondence: Prof. Brendan Weekes, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China, brendanweekes@icloud.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Nandini C Singh Matteo Canini Pasquale Della Rosa Brendan Weekes Jubin Abutalebi Google Nandini C Singh Matteo Canini Pasquale Della Rosa Brendan Weekes Jubin Abutalebi Google Scholar Nandini C Singh Matteo Canini Pasquale Della Rosa Brendan Weekes Jubin Abutalebi PubMed Nandini C Singh Matteo Canini Pasquale Della Rosa Brendan Weekes Jubin Abutalebi Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Bilingual advantage and language switch: What's the linkage?

Whether bilingualism affects executive functions is a topic of intense debate. While some studies have provided evidence of enhanced executive functions in bilinguals compared to monolinguals, other studies have failed to find advantages. In the present study, we investigated whether high opportunity of language switching could contribute to bilingual advantage. Advantages have been consistently found with Catalan–Spanish bilinguals who experience frequent opportunities of language switching. Fewer opportunities are experienced by speakers of Italian and one of the Italian dialects, the participants of our study. We anticipated reduced or no advantages with these participants. In Experiment 1, subjective estimates of familiarity with dialect failed to show a relationship with performances in different tasks involving executive control. In Experiment 2, we compared Italian–Venetian dialect bilinguals to Italian monolinguals in the flanker task, and no advantages were found either. Contrasting with results from Catalan–Spanish bilinguals, our results suggest that language switching plays a role in bilingual advantages.

Bilingual vocabulary size and lexical reading in Italian

In the present study we investigated how the vocabulary size of English–Italian bilinguals affects reading aloud in Italian (L2) modulating the reader's sensitivity to lexical aspects of the language. We divided adult bilinguals in two groups according to their vocabulary size (Larger — LV, and smaller — SV), and compared their naming performance to that of native Italian (NI) readers. In Experiment 1 we investigated the lexicality and word frequency effects in reading aloud. Similarly to NI, both groups of bilinguals showed these effects. In Experiment 2 we investigated stress assignment – which is not predictable by rule – to Italian words. The SV group made more stress errors in reading words with a non-dominant stress pattern compared to the LV group. The results suggest that the size of the reader's L2 lexicon affects the probability of correct reading aloud.Overall, the results indicate that proficient adult bilinguals show a similar sensibility to the statistical and distributional properties of the language as compared to Italian monolinguals.

Referring expressions in the narratives of Italian‐English bilingual children

AbstractIn this paper, I present the results of a study investigating the referring expressions and the selection of word order in the narrative productions of Italian‐English bilingual children and of a control group of Italian monolingual children. The aim of the study is to establish whether bilingual children overproduce overt subjects in Italian in contexts of [–topic‐shift], where a null pronoun is the most appropriate option. In addition, the potential difference between the two groups is analysed in terms of the selection of the word order in contexts of presentational focus, where VS is the favoured option for Italian monolinguals. The results show that bilingual children do not overproduce overt pronouns in their narratives, instead they show a weaker preference for the VS word order.

Is there cross-language modulation when bilinguals process number words?

ABSTRACTThis study explores the possibility of cross-language activation when bilinguals process number words in their first language (Italian) and their second language (German). Italian monolinguals (Experiment 1), German monolinguals (Experiment 2), and Italian/German bilinguals (Experiment 3) were required to decide the larger of two number words while the unit–decade compatibility effect was examined. For compatible trials the decade and unit comparisons lead to the same response (e.g., 24–67), whereas for incompatible trials the decade and unit comparisons lead to different responses (e.g., 27–64). The regular unit–decade compatibility effect was significant when bilinguals and monolinguals performed the comparison in German. However, this effect was not found when bilinguals and monolinguals performed the task in Italian. In addition, the decade distance played a major role when bilinguals processed in their first language, whereas the unit distance was more important when they worked in their second language. These results indicate that the processing of number words in one language is not modulated by the way bilinguals process number words in their alternative language.

Cross-linguistic influence in the interpretation of anaphoric and cataphoric pronouns in English–Italian bilingual children

This study reports the results of a picture verification task assessing the interpretation of intra-sentential anaphora and cataphora in Italian by a group of English–Italian bilingual eight-year-olds, a group of age-matched Italian monolinguals, and a group of Italian monolingual adults. No significant differences between the groups were observed in the choice of a subject antecedent for null anaphoric pronouns, and only marginally significant differences were reported between the adults and the two groups of children for the interpretation of null cataphoric pronouns. By contrast, overt pronominal subjects were accepted as co-referential with a subject antecedent significantly more often by the bilingual children than by the monolingual children and the adults in the anaphoric condition, and both groups of children accepted a subject as the antecedent of an overt cataphoric pronoun significantly more often than the adults. These results are interpreted in the context of language-universal and language-specific processing strategies in anaphora resolution in bilingual and monolingual acquisition.

An investigation of the cognitive development of Italian‐English bilinguals and Italian monolinguals from Rome

The cognitive development of Italian‐English bilinguals and Italian monolinguals was studied on measures of metalinguistic awareness, creativity, nonverbal abilities, and reading achievement. On the whole, results were found to be consistent with Cummins' Threshold Hypothesis, in that an overall superiority was found only for those children who had attained a high degree of bilingualism.