Bilingual cognitive differences within the context of socioeconomic status

This chapter investigates bilingualism and cognitive skills, specifically memory, for infants and young children. For the young developmental samples, memory is not a unitary construct, but one that requires attention and cognitive flexibility as they navigate through the complex environments around them. Bilingualism, being a language and social experience, also interacts with broader contexts, such as socioeconomic status (SES) in some communities. In this chapter, I examine how exposure to language(s) and SES is associated with broader memory generalization during infancy. The unique and interacting contribution of bilingualism and SES on cognition reveals the need to consider multiple experiences in order to gain a realistic and more comprehensive understanding of cognitive development.