Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Recent studies demonstrate strong, concurrent relationships between language and EF, particularly during early childhood.However, the literature remains controversial with respect to this relationship. Whereas some studies cite a bidirectionalrelationship, others suggest that EF is predictive of language gains, while others suggest that it is language which affectsEF through conversational practice. Further controversy remains in the literature regarding which components of EF areengaged in the processes. The bidirectionality of current research in this area suggests that perhaps EF and languageare best fitted by a curvilinear relationship. This is compounded by the fact that a large number of these studies haveemployed linear statistical analyses to examine the relationship of the two constructs. Thus, in order to further specifythe relationship between EF and language development, we examined monolingual and bilingual infants and toddlers todetermine the utility of a curvilinear model to assess the EF and language relationship, what aspect of language inhibitorycontrol most correlates to EF, and whether there is a monolingual/bilingual difference. Results indicate that the EF andlanguage early childhood relationship is best fitted by a curvilinear model.