To What Extent Does Bilingualism Affect Children's Performance on the NEPSY?

Abstract

Twenty-seven monolingual and 27 bilingual children aged between 6 and 7 years were assessed using the core subtests of the NEPSY, a children's neuropsychological assessment. Bilingual children scored lower than monolingual children in the Language domain and their performance was comparable with the monolingual children in the domains of Attention/Executive Functioning, Sensorimotor, Visuospatial, and Memory. The NEPSY correlates well with measures of academic achievement. It is concluded that the NEPSY is relatively insensitive to cultural factors and appears to be insensitive to bilingualism in the neuropsychological assessment of bilingual children in the United Kingdom.

Keywords:

• Bilingualism
• neuropsychological assessment
• NEPSY