Multilingualism impacts children's executive function and core autism symptoms

Area of Science:

• Neurodevelopmental disorders
• Cognitive neuroscience
• Child psychology

Background:

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) presents significant heterogeneity in executive function (EF) profiles.
• EF components like inhibition and shifting are linked to core ASD symptoms, including social communication deficits and repetitive behaviors.
• Emerging evidence suggests multilingualism may positively influence EF, particularly in children with ASD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the associations between multilingualism, EF, and core ASD symptoms in children.
• To explore how multilingualism impacts inhibition, shifting, perspective-taking, social communication, and repetitive behaviors in children with and without ASD.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 116 children aged 7-12 years, with 53 diagnosed with ASD.
• Comparison of EF and symptom-related skills between multilingual and monolingual children, with and without ASD.
• Analysis of parent-reported data on inhibition, shifting, perspective-taking, social communication, and repetitive behaviors.

Main Results:

• Multilingual children demonstrated superior parent-reported inhibition, shifting, and perspective-taking skills compared to monolingual peers.
• A significant interaction revealed that multilingualism's positive effect on inhibition was more pronounced in children with ASD than in typically developing children.
• EF skills were found to mediate the indirect effects of multilingualism on perspective taking, social communication, and repetitive behaviors.

Conclusions:

• Multilingual experiences appear to support and enhance executive functions in children with ASD.
• Multilingualism may offer a beneficial avenue for mitigating core symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder.
• These findings highlight the potential of multilingualism as an intervention or supportive factor for children with ASD.