INS NYC 2024 Program

Poster	Poster Session 11 Program Schedule 02/17/2024 10:45 am - 12:00 pm Room: Majestic Complex (Posters 61-120) Poster Session 11: Cultural Neuropsychology \| Education/Training \| Professional Practice Issues Final Abstract #89 Comparison of Mono- and Bilingual Finland-Swedish 6–16-year-old Children’s Performance in WISC-V and NEPSY-II Jannika Salonen, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Johanna Rosenqvist, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Susanna Slama, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Anu Haavisto, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Category: Cross Cultural Neuropsychology/ Clinical Cultural Neuroscience Keyword 1: bilingualism/multilingualism Keyword 2: assessment Keyword 3: cognitive functioning Objective: When doing cognitive assessments with children, the clinician needs to take the child’s language background, including bilingualism, into consideration. The relationship between bilingualism and cognitive performance is complex and previous research show varying results, with bilingual lexical disadvantages, bilingual executive advantages, and many null results, indicating that the relationship may be mediated by different contextual factors. One interesting population with many bilinguals is the Swedish-speaking language minority in Finland, the Finland-Swedes. This study aimed to compare mono- and bilingual Finland-Swedish children’s performance on the Swedish versions of WISC-V and NEPSY-II. More information on the associations between bilingualism and cognitive test results may have scientific implications as well as lead to more accurate interpretations in clinical assessments. Participants and Methods: The participants were 6–16-year-old Swedish-speaking monolinguals (n = 110) and Swedish-Finnish-speaking simultaneous bilinguals (n = 84) from Finland. The bilinguals spoke two languages at home (Swedish and Finnish) and were exposed to both languages since birth. All participants attended Swedish-speaking schools or pre-primary schools. The participating children were assessed in Swedish with the Swedish version of WISC-V and with some of the verbal subtests from the Swedish NEPSY-II. Test performance between the groups was compared using profile analyses for WISC-V and linear mixed model for NEPSY-II. Results: There were no significant main effects of bilingualism on the subtest level or the primary index level of WISC-V, nor for the administered NEPSY-II subtests. However, there were significant interaction effects, with pairwise comparisons showing that bilingualism was significantly related to performance on two individual subtests and one index of WISC-V. Monolingual children scored significantly higher on Vocabulary and the Verbal Comprehension Index than bilinguals, and the opposite was found for Symbol Search. Conclusions: The results showed that Finland-Swedish monolingual and bilingual children perform overall similarly on WISC-V and NEPSY-II in Swedish. However, performance on some subtests was sensitive to bilingualism. The higher scores in Symbol Search for the bilinguals in this sample may contribute to the ongoing discussion about the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive tasks requiring executive functions. For clinical purposes, especially the finding that bilinguals scored lower on Vocabulary when assessed only in one language emphasizes the importance of taking bilingualism into consideration in clinical assessments, as lower vocabulary scores in bilinguals may be falsely interpreted as lower verbal reasoning skills.

Poster

02/17/2024
10:45 am - 12:00 pm
Room: Majestic Complex (Posters 61-120)

Poster Session 11: Cultural Neuropsychology | Education/Training | Professional Practice Issues

Final Abstract #89

Comparison of Mono- and Bilingual Finland-Swedish 6–16-year-old Children’s Performance in WISC-V and NEPSY-II

Jannika Salonen, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Johanna Rosenqvist, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Susanna Slama, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Anu Haavisto, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Category: Cross Cultural Neuropsychology/ Clinical Cultural Neuroscience

Keyword 1: bilingualism/multilingualism
Keyword 2: assessment
Keyword 3: cognitive functioning

Objective:

When doing cognitive assessments with children, the clinician needs to take the child’s language background, including bilingualism, into consideration. The relationship between bilingualism and cognitive performance is complex and previous research show varying results, with bilingual lexical disadvantages, bilingual executive advantages, and many null results, indicating that the relationship may be mediated by different contextual factors. One interesting population with many bilinguals is the Swedish-speaking language minority in Finland, the Finland-Swedes. This study aimed to compare mono- and bilingual Finland-Swedish children’s performance on the Swedish versions of WISC-V and NEPSY-II. More information on the associations between bilingualism and cognitive test results may have scientific implications as well as lead to more accurate interpretations in clinical assessments.

Participants and Methods:

The participants were 6–16-year-old Swedish-speaking monolinguals (n = 110) and Swedish-Finnish-speaking simultaneous bilinguals (n = 84) from Finland. The bilinguals spoke two languages at home (Swedish and Finnish) and were exposed to both languages since birth. All participants attended Swedish-speaking schools or pre-primary schools. The participating children were assessed in Swedish with the Swedish version of WISC-V and with some of the verbal subtests from the Swedish NEPSY-II. Test performance between the groups was compared using profile analyses for WISC-V and linear mixed model for NEPSY-II.

Results:

There were no significant main effects of bilingualism on the subtest level or the primary index level of WISC-V, nor for the administered NEPSY-II subtests. However, there were significant interaction effects, with pairwise comparisons showing that bilingualism was significantly related to performance on two individual subtests and one index of WISC-V. Monolingual children scored significantly higher on Vocabulary and the Verbal Comprehension Index than bilinguals, and the opposite was found for Symbol Search.

Conclusions:

The results showed that Finland-Swedish monolingual and bilingual children perform overall similarly on WISC-V and NEPSY-II in Swedish. However, performance on some subtests was sensitive to bilingualism. The higher scores in Symbol Search for the bilinguals in this sample may contribute to the ongoing discussion about the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive tasks requiring executive functions. For clinical purposes, especially the finding that bilinguals scored lower on Vocabulary when assessed only in one language emphasizes the importance of taking bilingualism into consideration in clinical assessments, as lower vocabulary scores in bilinguals may be falsely interpreted as lower verbal reasoning skills.