Attachment Security and Developmental Patterns of Growth in Executive Functioning During Early Elementary School

Despite the extensive research demonstrating the importance of child executive functioning (EF) for school adjustment, little longitudinal work has formally examined developmental change in EF during the early school years. Based on a sample of 106 mother–child dyads, the current longitudinal study investigated patterns of growth in child performance on three executive tasks between kindergarten (M_age = 6 years) and Grade 3 (M_age = 9 years), and the predictive role of earlier mother–child attachment security in these patterns. The results suggest that early elementary school is a period of significant developmental improvement in child EF, although child performance on different EF tasks follows distinct trajectories across time. The study also provides evidence for a sustained relation between children's early attachment security and their ongoing acquisition of executive skills.     

Meditative Training Improves Undergraduate Executive Functioning

The experience of attending college can be a stressful experience for many students, one that college and university counseling centers may have limited resources of time and finances to assuage. For instance, decision making may deteriorate during times of stress and result in a narrowed perceptual set. The present study sought to determine through a novel design whether meditative training could effectively address the situation. Results indicated that classroom-based meditative training improved executive functioning among college students regarding stress, cognitive flexibility, and insight. Such an approach to intervention may provide college and university counseling centers with greater opportunities to better meet student emotional and academic needs.     

Measurement of Executive Functioning Using a Playful Robot in Kindergarten

Abstract

We explored the potential of a robotics application in education as a measurement tool of child executive functioning skills. Sixty-five kindergarteners received assignments to go through a maze with a programmable robot, the Bee-Bot. Via observation we quantified how they solved these tasks. Their performance was successfully aggregated into a latent variable, which was used to predict the outcomes on standardized tasks that measure executive functioning. The latent variable significantly predicted performance on several tasks that measure problem-solving abilities, memory, visuospatial abilities and attention. It did not significantly predict pencil-and-paper tasks that measured visuospatial ability and nonverbal or design fluency. This study showed that it is possible to use a playful robotics task to obtain information on children’s ability. We recommend more research on using diverse robots in larger samples with different age groups to further explore the possibilities of robots as a test instrument.     

执行性机能与儿童心理理论的发展

最近十几年里，国外的心理学家越来越重视对执行性机能与儿童心理理论发展的关系的研究，迄今已取得丰富的研究成果，提出了多种理论假设，本研究从国外已提出的有关执行性机能与儿童心理理论发展关系的理论假设的角度，综述和简评了国外已取得的这方面的研究成果。     

Chronic Absenteeism and Preschool Children's Executive Functioning Skills Development

ABSTRACT

Investments in preschool programs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds have historically been supported by research showing that these programs help children build school readiness skills and narrow the income-achievement gap. However, results from recent studies of the links between preschool participation and increases in school readiness skills are more mixed. Significant variation in regular preschool attendance and the availability of high-quality early learning environments could help explain mixed findings on preschool effectiveness. Using data from a preschool expansion demonstration project, we explored associations between children's attendance rates, classroom quality, and neighborhood poverty and children's fall to spring gains in a set of important school readiness skills in executive functioning. Children (N = 197) lived in neighborhoods where 26% of households (range = 0 – 92%) lived below the poverty line and attended 48 classrooms in public and private settings. Attendance rates, including chronic absenteeism, were significantly associated with children's gains in executive functioning skills, but only when children attended high-quality classrooms. Results suggest that efforts to increase attendance rates may benefit children's executive functioning skills among children living in higher poverty neighborhoods the most when communities also invest in increasing preschool classroom quality.     

Sleep and Cognition in Preschool Years: Specific Links to Executive Functioning

This study investigated the prospective links between sleep in infancy and preschoolers' cognitive performance. Mothers of 65 infants completed a sleep diary when infants were aged 1 year, and children completed two subscales of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence at 4 years, indexing general cognitive ability and complex executive functioning. Consistent with hypotheses, children getting higher proportions of their sleep at night as infants were found to perform better on executive functions, but did not show better general cognition. Relations held after controlling for family socioeconomic status and prior cognitive functioning. These findings suggest that the special importance of sleep for higher order cognition, documented among adults, may appear very early in life.     

Professional Functioning: Exploring Developmental Narratives of Counselor Trainees

The authors analyzed the reflective journals of 49 counselor trainees in internship using a conventional content analysis approach. Developmental insights from the 4 overarching themes and 7 subthemes are provided to assist counselor education and supervision programs in supporting the professional functioning of counselor trainees.     

Developmental Changes in Event Memory

Do developmental differences exist in children's organization of event memories? We explored this question by examining children's recall of standard features of a repeated event versus features that deviated from that event. 4- and 7-year-old children experienced an initially unfamiliar laboratory event (standard event) 1 or 3 times. Following the last visit, deviations from the standard event were introduced (deviation event). Children's recall was assessed 1 week later under free recall and contextual recall conditions. Younger children had more difficulty than older children distinguishing between the standard and deviation visits. That is, 4-year-olds were more confused regarding which event features occurred in the different event visits. 7-year-olds, in contrast, did a better job of correctly remembering the features of the standard and deviation visits. Implications for developmental changes in the organization of general and specific event memory are discussed.     

Self-Control Interventions That Benefit Executive Functioning and Academic Outcomes in Early and Middle Childhood

ABSTRACT

Objective and Outcomes: In this paper we describe extant child self-regulation and self-control interventions that benefit executive functioning and academic outcomes. We review interventions that occur in preschool, as well as those that are designed for elementary school-aged children. Outcomes include concurrent and later executive functioning gains, school readiness, school transition, and educational achievement. Our primary focus is on scientifically rigorous, prospective research, and we discuss international interventions that target child self-control from multiple perspectives. Conclusions and Implications for Research and Practice: We conclude by proposing future directions, highlighting areas where additional research is needed. In particular, studies measuring preschool/school readiness and transition, investigations that examine both socio-emotional and cognitive aspects of self-control development in the context of intervention, research integrating parents, families and schools, and more comprehensive, longitudinal studies of how these interventions affect academic outcomes would contribute greatly to this emerging literature.     

Developing Self‐Directed Executive Functioning: Recent Findings and Future Directions

How do children become increasingly self‐directed across development, achieving their goals without help from others? How might such developments be impacted by societal changes in how children spend their time? Children's abilities to achieve their goals are supported by developing executive functions (EFs), cognitive processes that predict important life outcomes. Efforts to improve children's EFs have benefitted their externally driven executive functioning, where goals and instructions are provided by others. Less is known about self‐directed EF, when children must decide independently what to do and when. We present recent findings demonstrating that children are better at engaging self‐directed EF when they have good understanding of options to choose among, and if they spend time in activities that they play a large role in directing. Within this context, we discuss the potential role of opportunities to plan, mind‐wander, and play, and present the critical next steps in investigating the influence of changing environments on self‐directed EF.     

From External Regulation to Self-Regulation: Early Parenting Precursors of Young Children's Executive Functioning

In keeping with proposals emphasizing the role of early experience in infant brain development, this study investigated the prospective links between quality of parent–infant interactions and subsequent child executive functioning (EF), including working memory, impulse control, and set shifting. Maternal sensitivity, mind-mindedness and autonomy support were assessed when children were 12 to 15 months old ( N  =   80). Child EF was assessed at 18 and 26 months. All three parenting dimensions were found to relate to child EF. Autonomy support was the strongest predictor of EF at each age, independent of general cognitive ability and maternal education. These findings add to previous results on child stress-response systems in suggesting that parent–child relationships may play an important role in children's developing self-regulatory capacities.     

Night Awakening and Its Association With Executive Functioning Across the First Two Years of Life

Longitudinal associations between signaled night awakening and executive functioning (EF) at 8 and 24 months in children with (≥ 3 awakenings, n = 77) and without parent-rated fragmented sleep (≤ 1 awakening, n = 69) were studied. EF was assessed with the Switch task at 8 and 24 months. At 24 months, behavioral tasks and parental ratings of EF (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function–Preschool version) were also used. In the Switch task, children with fragmented sleep were less able to learn stimulus sequences and inhibit previously learned responses than children without fragmented sleep. The groups differed only marginally in parental ratings of EF, and no differences were found in behavioral EF tasks. These results suggest that eye movement-based measures may reveal associations between sleep and EF already in infancy and toddlerhood.     

Teachers as Air Traffic Controllers: Helping Adolescents Navigate the Unfriendly Skies of Executive Functioning

The purpose of this article is to familiarize teachers with the concept of executive functioning and to provide them with a collection of strategies that they can use to help support middle and high school students with planning, organization, task-initiation, and impulse control.     

Developmental Changes in Imitation from Television during Infancy

Infants' (N = 276) ability to learn from television under seminaturalistic conditions was examined in five experiments with 12-, 15-, and 18-month-olds. In all experiments, an adult performed a series of specific actions with novel stimuli. Some infants watched the demonstration live, and some infants watched the same demonstration on television from prerecorded videotape. Infants' ability to reproduce the target actions was then assessed either immediately or after a 24-hour delay. Infants of all ages exhibited imitation when the actions were modeled live. There were age-related and task-related differences, however, in infants' ability to imitate the same actions modeled on television. The role of perceptual, attentional, and cognitive development in the ability to learn from television is discussed.     

Relations between Risk for Sleep-Disordered Breathing,Cognitive and Executive Functioning,and Academic Performance in Six-Year-Olds

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: Optimal sleep is important for children’s learning and development. Sleep disordered breathing (SDB) refers to a spectrum of conditions from simple snoring to obstructive sleep apnea that is common in childhood and interrupts sleep. We examined pathways between SDB and academic performance of children (N = 163, M age = 6.2 years) one year after school entry. Measures included parent questionnaire and clinical assessment of SDB, standardized tests and rating scales of cognitive and executive functioning, researcher-administered literacy and numeracy tasks, and teacher-reported academic performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed direct and indirect paths between SDB and poorer academic performance. In indirect models, children’s SDB severity score was significantly linked to poorer executive functioning (β = .38, p < .01) and negatively associated with nonverbal reasoning (β = ?.21, p < .01). Poorer executive functioning, in turn, was negatively related to the verbal composite (β = ?.61, p < .01), with verbal and nonverbal composites associated with academic performance (βs = .56, .27, respectively, p’s < .01). Practice or Policy: These findings point to the need for attention to SDB and its links to potential cognitive sequelae across early development. Practitioners equipped with knowledge of SDB symptoms can facilitate referral for appropriate consultation and evaluation.     

Self-Construals and Social Adjustment in Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Early Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Executive Functioning

This study examined whether executive functions (EFs) moderate the association between independent and interdependent self-construals and social adjustment in 488 Moroccan, Romanian, and Italian preadolescents (ages 11–13) in Italy. Participants were assessed using self-report questionnaires and standardized EF tasks. Better working memory was related to increased social competence across all groups. High levels of inhibitory control were found to enhance the positive relation between interdependence and prosocial behavior for native Italian youth, and between interdependence and social competence for Moroccan preadolescents. High levels of cognitive flexibility boosted the interdependence–social competence link for the immigrant groups, whereas among native Italian preadolescents, the interdependence–social competence link was significant at low levels of flexibility. Implications for developmental theory and practice are discussed.     

Developmental Trajectories of Acculturation in Hispanic Adolescents: Associations With Family Functioning and Adolescent Risk Behavior

This study examined longitudinal acculturation patterns, and their associations with family functioning and adolescent risk behaviors, in Hispanic immigrant families. A sample of 266 Hispanic adolescents (M_age = 13.4) and their primary parents completed measures of acculturation, family functioning, and adolescent conduct problems, substance use, and sexual behavior at five timepoints. Mixture models yielded three trajectory classes apiece for adolescent and parent acculturation. Assimilated adolescents reported the poorest family functioning, but adolescent assimilation negatively predicted adolescent cigarette smoking, sexual activity, and unprotected sex indirectly through family functioning. Follow‐up analyses indicated that discrepancies between adolescent and parent family functioning reports predicted these adolescent outcomes. Results are discussed regarding acculturation trajectories, adolescent risk behavior, and the mediating role of family functioning.     

Memory and Executive Functioning in 12‐Year‐Old Children With a History of Institutional Rearing

We examined visual recognition memory and executive functioning (spatial working memory [SWM], spatial planning, rule learning, and attention shifting) in 12‐year‐olds (n = 150) who participated in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized controlled trial of foster care for institutionally reared children. Similar to prior reports at 8 years of age, institutionally reared children showed significant deficits in visual recognition memory and SWM. Deficits in attention shifting and rule learning were also apparent at this time point. These data suggest that early experiences continue to shape the development of memory, learning, and executive functioning processes in preadolescence, which may explain broader cognitive and learning difficulties commonly associated with severe early life neglect.     

Pathways to School Readiness: Executive Functioning Predicts Academic and Social–Emotional Aspects of School Readiness

The current study specified the extent to which hot and cool aspects of executive functioning predicted academic and social‐emotional indicators of school readiness. It was unique in focusing on positive aspects of social–emotional readiness, rather than problem behaviors. One hundred four 3–5‐year‐old children completed tasks measuring executive functioning, social–emotional readiness, academic readiness, and vocabulary. As expected, age predicted executive functioning components and social–emotional readiness. Moreover, working memory and inhibitory control directly predicted academic readiness, whereas delay of gratification predicted social–emotional readiness. Working memory and inhibitory control predicted delay of gratification, consistent with the notion that simpler executive functions may set the stage for more complex executive functions. Interestingly, social–emotional readiness predicted academic readiness. These findings confirm that hot and cool aspects of executive functioning are related to social–emotional and academic school readiness.