The Relationship between Story Comprehension, Story Grammar Production, and Executive Function in Preschool-Age Korean-English Bilingual Children with and without Vocabulary Delay

Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between story comprehension and story grammar abilities, as well as executive function in preschool Korean-English bilingual children with vocabulary delay (VD) compared to typically developing (TD) children and examined predictors of their narrative abilities. Methods: A total of 30 children (13 children with VD, 17 TD children) aged from 4-6 years participated in the study. Children performed non-word repetition (NWR) and word list recall for verbal working memory, matrix for nonverbal working memory, fruit stroop for inhibition, and Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) for shifting. They also performed story comprehension and story grammar production tasks in both languages to assess their narrative abilities. For data analyses, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and stepwise multiple regression were conducted. Results: The VD group showed significantly lower performance in working memory, inhibition, shifting tasks. Moreover, VD group had significantly lower performance in story comprehension and story grammar production tasks in both languages. In the TD group, Korean story comprehension performance was correlated with English story comprehension, Korean story grammar production, English story grammar production performances. On the other hand, in the VD group, only Korean story comprehension showed a significant correlation with Korean story grammar production performance. Lastly, matrix significantly predicted English story comprehension abilities and word list recall significantly predicted Korean story grammar production abilities in the TD group. Conclusion: By examining the relationship between children’s ability to understand stories, produce story grammar and sub-factors of executive function, we can improve the narrative education and intervention for bilingual children’s literacy and academic achievement in the future.