Browsing by Author "Silva, Sara Sacadura Barbosa Pacheco da"
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- Bilingualism: Potential Impacts on Executive Functions and on Cognitive ReservePublication . Silva, Sara Sacadura Barbosa Pacheco da; Oliveira, Raquel Maria Baptista de Lemos Guerra deABSTRACT: Bilingualism has gathered significant attention in recent years due to its remarkable impact on cognitive processes, particularly its important role in enhancing executive functions and also on improving cognitive reserve. Higher levels of executive functioning allow individuals to deal with everyday tasks more easily since it helps them achieve goals, adapt to new situations and even better social interactions. As for cognitive reserve, better levels seem to delay the symptoms of several diseases linked to dementia. This study aimed at investigating whether bilingual young adults have a significantly better performance on executive functioning measures, when compared to monolingual young adults and to verify if bilingualism impacts the level of cognitive reserve. The study included 60 participants aged between 18 and 31 (young adults) divided into two groups: 30 bilinguals and 30 monolinguals. The participants were assessed with the following Executive Function tests: Coding Subtest, Letter-Number Sequencing Subtest, Stroop Color Word Test, Verbal Fluency Test, and Ravens Standard Progressive Matrices. The Cognitive Reserve Index Questionnaire and the Irregular Word Reading Test were included as measures of cognitive reserve. Our results showed that, regarding executive functioning, a significantly higher performance, favoring bilingual individuals, was found in inhibitory control, and working memory functions. This evidence confirms that bilinguals manifest superior performance in some executive functions. In the CRIq, the bilingual group had an overall higher score on CRI Education and on CRI Leisure Time but not on CRI Working Activity. A similar pattern was found for the TeLPI, where bilinguals revealed a significantly superior number of accurate responses in reading irregular words. Correlations were calculated between the cognitive reserve variables and the executive functioning measures for the two groups. In the bilingual group, CRI Education showed a significant moderate correlation with measures of working memory and with inhibitory control measures. Regarding the monolingual group, only the Coding Subtest revealed a significant moderate correlation with both the CRI Leisure Time and CRI Education. A Linear Regression was used to verify which of the bilingual factors had a predictive role in the results obtained in the executive functions and cognitive reserve tasks. Regardless of the extent to which bilingualism is the complete, partial, or apparent cause of the data obtained in this study, this continues to be an area that needs more research.