TY - JOUR
T1 - The Joint Effect of Bilingualism and ADHD on Executive Functions
AU - Mor, Billy
AU - Yitzhaki-Amsalem, Sarin
AU - Prior, Anat
N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by EU-FP7 Grant IRG-249163 to Anat Prior. Publisher Copyright: © 2014 SAGE Publications
PY - 2015/6/11
Y1 - 2015/6/11
N2 - Objective: The current study investigated the combined effect of ADHD, previously associated with executive function (EF) deficits, and of bilingualism, previously associated with EF enhancement, on EF. Method: Eighty University students, Hebrew monolinguals and Russian Hebrew bilinguals, with and without ADHD participated. Inhibition tasks were a Numeric Stroop task and a Simon arrows task. Shifting tasks were the Trail Making Test (TMT) and a task-switching paradigm. Results: Participants with ADHD performed worse than controls, but we did not find a bilingual advantage in EF. The negative impact of ADHD was more pronounced for bilinguals than for monolinguals, but only in interference suppression tasks. Bilingual participants with ADHD had the lowest performance. Conclusion: Bilingualism might prove to be an added burden for adults with ADHD, leading to reduced EF abilities. Alternatively, the current findings might be ascribed to over- or under-diagnosis of ADHD due to cultural differences between groups. These issues should be pursued in future research.
AB - Objective: The current study investigated the combined effect of ADHD, previously associated with executive function (EF) deficits, and of bilingualism, previously associated with EF enhancement, on EF. Method: Eighty University students, Hebrew monolinguals and Russian Hebrew bilinguals, with and without ADHD participated. Inhibition tasks were a Numeric Stroop task and a Simon arrows task. Shifting tasks were the Trail Making Test (TMT) and a task-switching paradigm. Results: Participants with ADHD performed worse than controls, but we did not find a bilingual advantage in EF. The negative impact of ADHD was more pronounced for bilinguals than for monolinguals, but only in interference suppression tasks. Bilingual participants with ADHD had the lowest performance. Conclusion: Bilingualism might prove to be an added burden for adults with ADHD, leading to reduced EF abilities. Alternatively, the current findings might be ascribed to over- or under-diagnosis of ADHD due to cultural differences between groups. These issues should be pursued in future research.
KW - adult ADHD
KW - cognitive control
KW - executive function
KW - language
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84929166659&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054714527790
DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054714527790
M3 - Article
C2 - 24681900
SN - 1087-0547
VL - 19
SP - 527
EP - 541
JO - Journal of Attention Disorders
JF - Journal of Attention Disorders
IS - 6
ER -