Imprints of self: Manifestations of bilingual and monolingual children's cognitive structures in drawings of self and significant others

This study examines the performances of monolingual and bilingual pre-adolescent students in three different modes of representation for three distinct emotions in order to test my hypothesis that bilingualism promotes cognitive growth. Cognitive level measures were applied to drawings of self and significant others when examining graphic composition, visual representation and verbal description of interactions. The study explores the application of an alternative cognitive measure using drawing as the source of data. Using visual assessments in addition to verbal measures provided valuable and complimentary information about children's cognitive structures.;Students' performances in the visual and verbal modes were compared to test the validity of the adapted visual scale. Scores for graphic compositions were based on established levels of artistic development; verbal descriptions of interaction were based on Fischer's skill theory; and visual representation were my proposed alternative, adapted from Fischer (1980), for measuring cognitive development through drawings.;Three drawing tasks were administered to 92 students in grades 5 and 6 enrolled in two programs: a monolingual and a two-way bilingual immersion. I addressed five research questions by carrying out a series of regression analyses, using separate analyses for each of the main outcomes. These analyses indicate that there were no statistically significant differences in the scores of monolingual and bilingual speakers; and of students enrolled in a monolingual and a two-way bilingual immersion program. Bilingual speakers cognitively develop at the same rate as their monolingual counterparts. Therefore, bilingual speakers' psychological development is not delayed or hindered by their long-term dual linguistic experiences.