Executive Function and Narrative Language Abilities in Emergent Bilingual Preschoolers: An Exploratory Study

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Linguistics
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Preschool oral narrative skills are crucial precursors to literacy development.
• Emergent bilingual children, particularly Latine preschoolers, require targeted research on language development.
• Executive Function (EF) plays a role in various cognitive and academic skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine expressive language skills in emergent bilingual Latine preschoolers during a personal narrative task.
• To investigate the contribution of executive function (EF) skills to narrative language abilities in this population.

Main Methods:

• Children completed EF assessments (Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment).
• Children produced personal narratives in response to prompts.
• Linear regressions analyzed the relationship between EF and narrative production, organization, and expressive language.

Main Results:

• Executive Function (EF) skills predicted the ability to produce a personal narrative.
• EF skills did not predict the expressive language complexity demonstrated within the narratives.

Conclusions:

• EF is involved in emergent bilingual Latine children's narrative production, particularly the global task of storytelling.
• Interventions supporting both EF and narrative skills may enhance preliteracy in bilingual children.