THE IMPACT OF REFUGEE STATUS ON LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

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2022-7-29

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Yeter, Özlem

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To this day, there is no detailed information on how experiences related to forced displacement affect cognitive and linguistic development of the Syrian refugee children. To address this gap in the literature, 25 low-SES Syrian refugee children (9-year-old) were tested for their working memory (WM), inhibitory control (IC), shifting, fluid intelligence abilities as well as vocabulary abilities. Their scores were compared with two low-SES non-refugee same-age control groups: Turkish monolinguals (N = 20) and Arabic-Turkish bilingual minorities (N = 20). Syrian children lagged behind both non-refugee groups in the fluid intelligence task. They also obtained poorer WM scores than their bilingual controls. Adverse experiences and poor pre-school education had negative effects on Syrian children’s cognitive development. However, no further cognitive difference between this warn-torn group and the non-refugee children was observed. On language tests, Syrian children had a smaller Turkish vocabulary size than both non-refugee controls, but they outperformed their bilingual controls in Arabic. Although Syrian children draw a more balanced bilingual profile, their L1 (Arabic) skills were poorer than the control groups’ Turkish skills. Overall results suggest that although Syrian children’s WM, fluid intelligence abilities and L1 development were negatively affected by the forced displacement, they were able to develop Turkish vocabulary skills and match with Turkish monolinguals on all assessed EF measures. This is the first evidence suggesting that holding bilingual status may actually have created a cognitively protective shield for disadvantaged Syrian children. This study also highlights the significance of early childhood education for cognitive development.

Subject Keywords

Refugee Children, Bilingualism, Executive Functioning, Fluid Intelligence

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/98198

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Graduate School of Informatics, Thesis

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Citation Formats

Ö. Yeter, “THE IMPACT OF REFUGEE STATUS ON LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.