Funções executivas e bilinguismo: estudo comparativo com crianças pré-escolares monolíngues e bilíngues

• Autor(a) principal: Takatsu, Mayra Mika
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_SP
• Texto Completo: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/19805
• topic: Bilinguismo - Aspectos psicológicos; Controle inibitório; Memória de trabalho; Bilingualism; Inhibitory control; Working memory; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA::PSICOLOGIA DO ENSINO E DA APRENDIZAGEM

This study investigated the relationship between bilingualism and executive functions: inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism is a worldwide phenomenon that is constantly growing in Brazil. Previous researches has shown that there is a bilingual advantage when compared to monolingual groups in tasks that measure inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility. One explanation found in the literature is that this bilingual advantage exists due to the frequent use of two linguistic codes. This daily practice allows bilinguals to inhibit a language that is not being used with a particular interlocutor, consequently obtaining a practise in inhibiting a linguistic code. This practice seems to develop some executive function abilities. This study took place in a religious institution located in the north part of São Paulo city. The participants of this study were 22 children whose age varied from 4 to 6 years old. They were divided in two groups: 11 monolingual Portuguese speakers and 11 bilingual Portuguese and Korean speakers. The materials used were: Teste Stroop para Pré-escolares to measure the inhibitory control ability, Teste Brasileiro de Repetição de Pseudopalavras to measure working memory ability and Dimensional Change Card Sort test to measure the cognitive flexibility ability. Results showed statistically significant advantages to the bilingual group in the working memory (Teste Brasileiro de Repetição de Pseudopalavras) and cognitive flexibility (Dimensional Change Card Sort test) abilities which agree with previous researches. There was a monolingual advantage in the inhibitory control ability (Teste Stroop para Pré-escolares – interference reaction time), but the difference was not statistically significant and this result contradicts previous studies. Future researches with a bigger number of participants and considering the results of the tests presented in this study will help deepen the knowledge about bilingualism and executive functions