Multilingualism educational attainment and cognitive development in UK adolescents
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Evidence for educational or cognitive advantages in multilinguals is mixed and may reflect socioeconomic or cultural confounds. Using 1673 UK adolescents from the SCAMP cohort, we examined educational attainment at ages 11 and 16 and change in cognitive control between these time points, comparing simultaneous multilinguals, children learning English as a second language, and monolinguals while adjusting for relevant covariates. Simultaneous multilinguals showed a small but reliable attainment advantage over monolinguals at both ages, whereas cognitive differences appeared only in cross-sectional analyses. Children learning English as a second language showed lower attainment at 11, steeper gains, and higher attainment by 16, with no evidence of cognitive differences. Mediation analyses indicated that attainment advantages were largely independent of cognitive measures, suggesting that educational outcomes and cognitive differences should be decoupled. These findings inform policy discussions on multilingual education.
Date Issued
2026-05-27
Date Acceptance
2026-02-25
Citation
npj Science of Learning, 2026, 11
ISSN
2056-7936
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Journal / Book Title
npj Science of Learning
Volume
11
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2026. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/41922392
PII: 10.1038/s41539-026-00411-z
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
ARTN 28
Date Publish Online
2026-04-01