FORWARD AND BACKWARD DIGIT SPAN IN THE LANGUAGES OF THE BILINGUAL

Grade 7 and undergraduate Chinese bilinguals in Hong Kong (total ? = 50 male and female students), speaking Chinese and English, were tested for forward and backward digit span in the respective languages. Despite years of instruction in English, difference between forward digit span in Chinese and forward digit span in English was significant. Difference between backward digit span in the two languages was much smaller. Forward and backward digit span appeared to reflect different cognitive processes. Some developmental differences were noted and a bilingual auditory storage index was suggested as one indication of bilingual development. © 1979 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.