Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Family socioeconomic status (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content>) is strongly associated with children's cognitive development, and past studies have reported socioeconomic disparities in both neurocognitive skills and brain structure across childhood. In other studies, bilingualism has been associated with cognitive advantages and differences in brain structure across the lifespan. The aim of the current study is to concurrently examine the joint and independent associations between family <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content> and dual‐language use with brain structure and cognitive skills during childhood. A subset of data from the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition and Genetics (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">PING</jats:styled-content>) study was analyzed; propensity score matching established an equal sample (<jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 562) of monolinguals and dual‐language users with similar socio‐demographic characteristics (<jats:italic>M</jats:italic><jats:sub>age</jats:sub> = 13.5, Range = 3–20 years). When collapsing across all ages, <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content> was linked to both brain structure and cognitive skills. When examining differences by age group, brain structure was significantly associated with both income and dual‐language use during adolescence, but not earlier in childhood. Additionally, in adolescence, a significant interaction between dual‐language use and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content> was found, with no difference in cortical surface area (<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SA</jats:styled-content>) between language groups of higher‐<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content> backgrounds but significantly increased <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SA</jats:styled-content> for dual‐language users from lower‐<jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content> families compared to <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content>‐matched monolinguals. These results suggest both independent and interacting associations between <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">SES</jats:styled-content> and dual‐language use with brain development. To our knowledge, this is the first study to concurrently examine dual‐language use and socioeconomic differences in brain structure during childhood and adolescence.</jats:p>