Investigation and Comparison of Behavioral Problems in Bilingual and Monolingual Preschool Children

Behavioral problems represent a prevalent category of mental disorders in children and adolescents, encompassing internalized and externalized behavioral problems. Regarding prevention, it is necessary to investigate and identify the psychological issues of children and adolescents at the onset of the disorder and treat it to minimize the psychological damage. However, if this disorder persists, the damage done to the character will increase. Minority children and adolescents often face unfavorable situations, such as poverty and deprivation of the benefits of society. In addition, becoming part of the minority population with the discussion of bilingualism and its effects on people's development has always been the focus of researchers, who emphasize its negative and positive effects, such as the effect on intelligence and creativity. So, the present study was conducted to compare and investigate behavioral problems in bilingual and monolingual children.

The method of current research was causal–comparative. The study population included all preschool children in Kermanshah Province, as well as Pakdasht and Karaj cities, Iran, in the academic year 2020–2021. Among the mentioned statistical population, one testing center in Sarpol Zahab City of Kermanshah Province, one in Pakdasht City (Sharif Abad City), and one in Karaj City were selected according to an available sampling method. A total of 266 parents completed the Behavior Assessment System for Children–Third Edition parent form. Of whom, 133 people had bilingual children, and 133 people had monolingual children. The inclusion criteria included the informed consent of parents to participate in the research and having a preschool child of 4 to 6 years old. The exclusion criterion was incomplete filling out the questionnaire. The parent form of Behavior Assessment System for Children–Third Edition (BASC–3) (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2015) was used to collect data. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (the Chi–square test, independent t test, and multivariate covariance analysis) by SPSS version 26 software. The significance level of statistical tests was set at 0.05.

The results showed that behavioral problems in all subscales, including externalized problems (p<0.001), internalized problems (p=0.006), behavioral symptoms (p=0.036), and adaptive skills (p=0.046) were significantly higher in bilingual preschool children compared to monolingual preschool children.

Based on the results of the present study, bilingual preschool children perform weaker and slower than monolingual preschool children in four components of behavioral problems: externalized problems, internalized problems, behavioral syndromes, and adaptive skills.