The Regulatory Function of Language in Bilingual Children

Abstract

The authors investigated the development of the ability of 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old bilingual children to perform a complex perceptual-motor task when they were given only Spanish or English verbal instructions. Results indicated that children perform better when given Spanish instruction. This was especially true of the 5-year-olds. Results also indicated that performance under both languages increased with age, and that a stable system of perceptual-motor connections was established by verbal instruction under the Spanish treatment at age 6 and under the English treatment at age 7.