Relationship between the Onset Age of Bilingualism and Development of Cognitive Control among Nigerians

Oct 15, 2026

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An increasing body of studies suggests that bilingual persons show advantages over monolinguals across diverse cognitive measures. This study examines how the onset age of bilingualism relates to the development of cognitive control among Nigerians. Ten bilingual university students at University Putra Malaysia were assigned to early and late bilingual groups. English proficiency was assessed with an online test and cognitive control with a flanker task. Early bilinguals showed higher English proficiency and better flanker-task performance, indicating greater cognitive control benefits.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Keywords

1. Introduction

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 7 No. 1; February 2016 Australian International Academic Centre, Australia | | | | | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | Flourishing Creativity & Literacy | | | | | | Relationship between the Onset Age of Bilingualism and Development of Cognitive Control among Nigerians Yasir Bdaiwi Jasim Al-Shujairi (Corresponding author) Faculty of Modern Language and Communication, University Putra Malaysia 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia [E-mail: yasir.bdaiwi.jasim1990@gmail.com](E-mail: yasir.bdaiwi.jasim1990@gmail.com) Jamila AbdulAzeez Buba Faculty of Modern Language and Communication, University Putra Malaysia 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia E-mail: [Jamila_abdulazeez@yahoo.com](Jamila_abdulazeez@yahoo.com) Mohammed Sani Ya'u Faculty of Modern Language and Communication, University Putra Malaysia 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia E-mail: [elmuhsan@gmail.com](elmuhsan@gmail.com) Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.1p.114 URL: [http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.1p.114](http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.7n.1p.114) Received: 04/09/2015 Accepted: 10/11/2015 Abstract An increasing body of studies suggests that bilingual persons are better than monolinguals on a variety of cognitive measures. Thus, the present study investigates the relationship between the onset age of bilingual and the development of cognitive control among Nigerians. 10 bilingual students studying at University Putra Malaysia have been selected to participate in this study. They are divided into two groups: 5 early and 5 late bilinguals. The data are collected using online English proficiency test and E-prime software as instruments. Both groups are examined for English proficiency and performance on a flanker task. The result demonstrates that early bilinguals are more proficient in English than late bilinguals. Moreover, early bilingual performs better than late bilingual on flanker task. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that being early active bilinguals tend to have greater advantages in cognitive control and higher language proficiency. Keywords: onset age, bilingualism, and cognitive control 1. Introduction Language propensity (Aptitude) is theorized as a mixture of cognitive and perceptual capacities that are very much advantageous in second language acquisition (SLA) (Doughty et al., 2007) . Carroll (1993) sees this pattern of capacities (p. 675) and maintained that they were to some extent inborn, fairly steady and moderately long-term characters. While specialists and novice would equally concur the common view of aptitude as a special ability for language, the speculative paradigm behind this popular idea has continued to be somewhat indefinable in the SLA scholarship. Although there is some understanding that language aptitude includes diverse cognitive abilities, it has been theorized in many ways in SLA, and separately they have distinctive implications at the measurement level. An increasing body of studies suggests that bilingual persons are better than monolinguals on a variety of cognitive measures (Craik, & Ryan, 2006) . These advantages, which have been considered as advantages in cognitive control, have been documented across the lifespan. Improved cognitive control among bilinguals has been observed in bilingualexposed infants and toddlers (Poulin-Dubois, et al., 2011) bilingual preschool children, young adults and older adults (Bialystok, Craik, & Freedman, 2007) . Further, cognitive controls advantages of bilingualism have been demonstrated using multiple cognitive tasks and found out that among bilinguals speaking a variety of language pairs, others are balanced bilinguals while other are not, suggesting that these effects are not limited to a single task or particular language pairing (Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010) . Studies on progressive effect of bilingualism on executive control as reported by Bialystok,

FAQs

What is the main aim of the study?

To investigate the relationship between the onset age of bilingualism and the development of cognitive control among Nigerians.

How were participants grouped in the research?

Ten bilingual students were selected and divided into two groups: 5 early bilinguals and 5 late bilinguals.

What measures were used to evaluate bilingualism-related outcomes?

English proficiency was measured using an online English proficiency test, and cognitive control was assessed with a flanker task using E-prime software.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk