Working Memory of Bilingual and Monolingual Children

The aim of this study was investigation of working memory capacity of bilingual and monolingual children. For this purpose 60 (30 girls and 30 boys) bilingual and 60 (30 girls and 30 boys) monolingual children from third grade students of public schools in Tehran and Zanjan were selected randomly and tested by forward, backward, Corsi, Counting span and stroop tasks. Data analysis with two way ANOVA and T-test indicated that bilingual children outperformed monolinguals in the backward, Corsi, Counting span and stroop tasks, but not difference was found in the forward span task. Also sex differences wasn’t found in working memory tasks except that the monolingual girls outperformed in the forward task than monolingual boys. The results showed that bilingual children in the central executive and visual-spatial sketchpad were better than monolingual peers but further research is needed about the phonological loop that no differences wasnt found between two groups. In addition, both sexes have the same working memory capacity and gender had not meaning role in this area.