Modulatory effects of SES and multilinguistic experience on cognitive development: a longitudinal data analysis of multilingual and monolingual adolescents from the SCAMP cohort

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown that cognitive development is sensitive to socio-economic status (SES) and multilinguistic experiences. However, these effects are difficult to disentangle and SES may modulate the effects of multilingualism. The present study used data from a large cohort of pupils who took part in the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP) at ages 11–12 (T1) and 13–15 years old (T2). Cognitive measures were derived from tasks of cognitive flexibility, verbal, spatial and visuo-spatial working memory, speech processing and non-verbal reasoning. Using SES information collected through questionnaires (school type, level of deprivation, parental education and occupation), the sample was clustered into high/medium/low SES groups. Comparisons focused on 517 monolingual and 329 multilingual pupils in the high/low SES groups. Having controlled for multiple comparisons, the results indicated a significant beneficial effect of bilingualism in measures of working memory, visuo-spatial processing and non-verbal reasoning. These effects were present in both high and low SES individuals and sustained at both times of development, with a particularly significant improvement of working memory abilities in low SES bilinguals at T2 as compared to monolingual peers. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are considered and guidance for educators is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingualism
• multilingualism
• working memory
• executive functions
• cognitive development
• bilingual advantage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The SCAMP study is an independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Policy Research Program (PRP; Secondary School Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Neurocognitive and Behavioural Outcomes/091/0212) via the Research Initiative on Health and Mobile Telecommunications – a partnership between public funders and the mobile phone industry. This study was supported by funds from the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Chemical and Radiation Threats and Hazards (Health Protection Research Units -2012-10141), a partnership between Public Health England and Imperial College London, and the MRC Centre for Environment and Health [MR/L01341X/1]. An extension to SCAMP was funded by the NIHR PRP. The funders of the study had no role in the design or conduct of the study or in the reporting of the SCAMP study results. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, Public Health England, or Department of Health and Social Care.

Notes on contributors

Roberto Filippi

Roberto Filippi is an Associate Professor at UCL – Institute of Education (London, UK) in the Department of Psychology and Human Development. His primary research interest focuses on multilanguage acquisition and its effects on cognitive control, memory and metacognitive processing. In particular, he studies the implications of raising children in multilingual environments with focus on both typical and atypical development. He is also interested in exploring the possible beneficial effects of using more than one language throughout the life span.

Andrea Ceccolini

Andrea Ceccolini is an independent researcher affiliated to the UCL Multilanguage and Cognition lab. He is a passionate technologist and Fintech entrepreneur, with over 30 years’ experience in software development, technical leadership and business consulting. His areas of expertise include software design, distributed high-performance architectures, statistical analysis and machine learning.

Elizabeth Booth

Elizabeth Booth obtained her PhD from Birkbeck College in London. Her research focus is the development of executive functions in early adolescence. She is currently working with the cognitive data from the SCAMP project https://www.scampstudy.org/.

Chen Shen

Steven Shen is a Research Associate within the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Imperial College London. He obtained a PhD (life course and lifestyle epidemiology) from The University of Hong Kong. His research interests focus on adolescent physical and mental health in relation to a wide range of lifestyle factors such as digital technology use, sleep, and physical activity. Steven is now working on the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP) (https://www.scampstudy.org/), which is investigating potential effects of mobile phones and other wireless devices on adolescents’ mental health and cognition.

Michael S.C. Thomas

Michael S. C. Thomas is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck University of London. Since 2010, Michael has been Director of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience, a cross-institutional research centre which aims to further translational research between neuroscience and education and establish new transdisciplinary accounts in the learning sciences. In 2003, Michael established the Developmental Neurocognition Laboratory within Birkbeck’s world-leading Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development. The focus of his laboratory is to use multi-disciplinary methods to understand the brain and cognitive bases of cognitive variability, including behavioural, brain imaging, computational and genetic methods. In 2006, the lab was the co-recipient of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education, for the project ‘Neuropsychological work with the very young: understanding brain function and cognitive development’. Michael is a Chartered Psychologist, Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and board member of the International Mind Brain and Education Society.

Mireille B. Toledano

Mireille B. Toledano is an epidemiologist with wide-ranging interests in the health effects of environmental exposures, with particular focus on environmental-omics exposures in the reproductive period, and early life through to adolescence. She has substantial expertise in leading the design, set-up and coordination of new large cohort studies including the Breast Milk, Environment, and Early-life Development (BEED) study, a child cohort SCAMP (www.scampstudy.org, Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones, a secondary school cohort study of mobile phone use and neurocognitive and behavioural outcomes with biological samples) and an adult cohort COSMOS (www.ukcosmos.org, COhort Study on MobileS, an international cohort study of adult mobile phone users).

Iroise Dumontheil

Iroise Dumontheil is a Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London. She obtained a PhD from the University of Paris VI and then was a postdoc in labs in London, Cambridge and Stockholm. She is a member of Centre for Educational Neuroscience and the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development. In 2015 she received the Spearman Medal, an early-career British Psychological Society award, and in 2017 the British Neuropsychological Society Elizabeth Warrington Prize. Her research focuses on the typical development of social cognition and cognitive control during adolescence and their functioning in adulthood. Her studies combine a variety of methods to study brain and cognitive development including functional and structural neuroimaging, behavioural assessments, and genetics. She is interested in the impact of cognitive training, from computerised games to mindfulness meditation practice, on cognition in children and adolescents, as well as the potential implications of neuroscience research for education.