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Article published In: Aging and Bilingualism
Edited by Ellen Bialystok and Margot D. Sullivan
[Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 6:1/2] 2016
► pp. 64–85

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Individual differences in cognitive control advantages of elderly late Dutch-English bilinguals

 | University of Groningen
 | University of Essex
Published online: 10 March 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.14032.kei
Abstract
This study addresses a gap in the literature on executive function advantages among bilingual speakers by investigating a group of elderly, long-term, immersed bilinguals. Our participants are native Dutch speakers who emigrated to Australia as adults and have spent many years in that country. They are compared on a range of cognitive and linguistic measures to native Dutch and native English control groups. We argue that, due to the massive differences in the bilingual experience, group analyses may fall short of capturing the full picture. We argue instead for a more qualitative approach, which takes into account as detailed a picture of bilingual development, daily language habits and, in particular, code-switching habits as possible.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The bilingual advantage
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials
      • Cognitive tasks
      • Language tasks
    • 3.3Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • Step 1: quantitative group comparison
    • Step 2: qualitative individual differences examined
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (37)
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