Multilingualism boosts executive function and reduces core symptoms in children with autism

By Hugo Francisco de SouzaReviewed by Lily Ramsey, LLMJan 8 2025

Study reveals multilingual children with autism show stronger cognitive skills and social communication, highlighting the potential benefits of multilingual exposure.

Study: Multilingualism impacts children's executive function and core autism symptoms. Image Credit: Sergey Novikov/Shutterstock.com

In a recent study published in the journal Autism Research, researchers examined the impact of multilingualism on autistic children’s executive function (EF) abilities. The study compared mono- and multilingual children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between the ages of 7-12 (n = 112) across the realms of social communication, perspective-taking, and repetitive behaviors.

Study findings reveal that children from multilingual households demonstrated improved shift, perspective-taking, and inhibition abilities compared to their monolingual counterparts.

These findings were especially strong in children with ASD. This study further evaluated the cascading connections between multilingual exposure, EF, and ASD symptoms and is the first to report a link between these aspects.

Background

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an umbrella term for several neurological and developmental conditions impairing patients’ interaction, communication, learning, and behavioral abilities.

It is a surprisingly common condition estimated to impact approximately one in every 100 children and, unfortunately, has no cure, therefore remaining throughout the child's life.

Previous research has established the marked difference between executive function (EF) ability development in children with ASD compared to typically developing (TD) children. Executive functions are those that enable daily management, learning, and goal-oriented growth.

Recent studies have demonstrated that multilingual exposure can improve EF development in TD children, but similar studies on ASD children remain scarce and confounding.

Furthermore, the associations between EF, ‘core ASD symptoms' (social communication, perspective-taking, and social communication), and multilingualism in both ASD and TD children remain unknown.

About the study

The present study had three main aims – 1. To verify if multilingualism impacts EF and whether the strength of this impact varies among ASD and TD children; 2. Investigate the impacts of multilingualism on core ASD symptoms, and 3. Assess if EF acts as a mediator in the association of ASD core symptoms and multilingualism.

The study cohort comprised 53 ASD children (21 multilingual) and 63 TD children (35 multilingual) between 7-12 years.

Participants with incomplete ASD symptom measure scores, demographic data, or with additional, potentially confounding diagnoses (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]) were excluded from the analyses (n = 4). Parent-completed questionnaires were used to determine their children’s multilingual status and proficiency.

Executive functions were evaluated using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-2 (BRIEF-2).

Core ASD symptoms were assessed using the Children's Empathy Quotient (EQ-C), the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), and the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R). Statistical computations were conducted in R software (2023) and included linear regressions and mediation analyses.

Study findings

Comparisons between ASD and TD revealed that the latter cohort significantly outperformed the former in inhibition performance. Notably, multilingual children in both cohorts outperformed their same-cohort monolingual peers, with the observed performance improvements most apparent in ASD children.

These findings suggest that exposure to multiple languages could positively benefit ASD children, reducing their inherent inhibitory behaviors.

Analyses of core autism symptoms revealed similar patterns, with multilingual children outperforming their same-cohort monolingual peers across perspective-taking, with the highest performance gains observed in multilingual ASD children.

However, exposure to multiple languages did not impact social communication skills or repetitive behaviors.

Mediation analyses revealed that multilingualism imparted both direct and indirect benefits to perspective-taking (core ASD). In one model, multilingualism was observed to improve perspective-taking directly.

In a separate model, multilingualism was associated with improved EF scores, the latter of which, in turn, improved perspective-taking. This provides the first confirmation of the cascading relationship between EF, multilingualism, and core ASD symptoms (perspective-taking).

Conclusions

The present study used a cohort of 112 mono- or multilingual children with and without ASD (age = 1 to evaluate the potential impacts of multi-language exposure on EF and core ASD symptoms. Study findings reveal that multilingualism significantly improves the EF and core ASD performance of both ASD and TD children over their monolingual same-group peers.

While TD children outperform ASD children in all evaluated metrics, the strength of multilingual improvements in ASD children far exceeds that of their TD peers, serving to bridge the gap between these developmentally different children.

This study further demonstrated a cascading association between multilingualism, EF, and core ASD symptoms, providing the first evidence of the direct and indirect relationship between these previously thought to be discreet components in the childhood development.

“The significance of our findings lies in the novelty of demonstrating the dual associations of multilingualism in improving EF skills and mitigating core symptoms of ASD. Together, these findings contribute to our understanding of the potential cognitive associations linked to multilingualism and offer insights into evidence-based interventions aimed at enhancing outcomes for this clinical population. In particular, they suggest that encouraging multilingualism in the home could provide a “natural intervention” strategy for bolstering some aspects of EF.”