Selective Attention in Cognitive Processing: The Bilingual Edge

Selective attention is identified as a unique cognitive process in which bilingual children demonstrate consistent advantages over monolingual children. The construct is explained in general terms and then operationalized within a specific framework for metalinguistic skills. Research comparing bilingual and monolingual children solving tasks in which bilingual children excel in problems requiring high levels of selective attention is reported. The analysis is applied to other cognitive domains to explore the extent to which the selective attention advantage for bilingual children extends beyond language competence.