Een kwantitatief onderzoek naar de relatie tussen taal en executieve functies en de modererende rol van leeftijd, intelligentie en geslacht.

Abstract

This exploratory study investigated the relationship between executive function (cognitive flexibility) and language (inflectional morphology) in children aged five to seven. The following research question will be answered “Is there a relationship between executive function (cognitive flexibility) and language ( inflectional morphology)?’. Also, the influence of age, IQ and gender as moderators on the relationship executive function (cognitive flexibility) and language ( inflectional morphology) will be investigated. The aim of the study is to link the gap that there is in the literature. There was a closed hypothesis for age as a moderator. It was expected that age would have a positive relationship on executive function (cognitive flexibility) and language ( inflectional morphology). Furthermore, there was an open hypothesis for IQ and sex as a moderator because of incosistencies in the literature. Four tests were administered to 117 children. These tests were: Taaltoets Alle Kinderen, the drawing test of Karmiloff-Smith, the Wechsler Nonverbal Scale of Ability (the Dutch version of) and the Wug Test. The tasks that were measured with these tests are: cognitive flexibility, inflectional morphology, inflectional morphological flexibility and IQ. The results were analyzed with a regression analysis. The dependent variable in this study is inflectional morphology and the independent variable. Age, IQ and genders were control variables in this study. The results show that there is no significant relationship between executive function (cognitive flexibility) and language ( inflectional morphology). Also, the effects of age, gender and IQ were all insignificant. Further research is recommended for a better understanding of the relationship between executive function (cognitive flexibility) and language (inflectional morphology).