Cognitieve flexibiliteit en flexibiliteit in taal

Abstract

This exploratory study investigated the relationship between cognitive flexibility and flexibility in language, in children aged five to seven. This was done in hope to shed light on the debate on whether language is embedded in, or separate from the rest of cognition. The influence of gender and age on this potential relationship was also assessed. Four different tasks were administered to 117 children between five and seven years old. These tasks were used to measure cognitive flexibility, inflectional morphology, inflectional morphological flexibility, and IQ. Results show no significant relationship between cognitive flexibility and inflectional morphological flexibility. Furthermore, the effects of gender and age on this relationship were both insignificant. Results do show a significant correlation between cognitive flexibility and gender, and between inflectional morphology flexibility and age. This study has some limitations concerning the validity, reliability, and generalizability of the results. Therefore, the conclusions drawn in this study should be taken with caution. For a better understanding of the relationship between cognitive flexibility and flexibility in language, further research is needed and therefore recommended.