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Scholars in language education have called for a research agenda that examines how heritage language (HL) learners re-learn their family language since their experience learning the heritage language differs from that of second language (L2) learners. This dissertation study explores how increasing cognitive demands on tasks, as predicted by the Cognition Hypothesis, may have an impact on the development of the Spanish present subjunctive in adjectival relative clauses in both HL and L2 learner populations, and how individual differences in inhibitory control may mediate learning outcomes. The study also examines how prior language experience across different contexts shapes inhibitory control abilities.