TY - JOUR
T1 - Contributions of modern measurement theory to measuring executive function in early childhood: An empirical demonstration
JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
Y1 - 2011
A1 - Michael T. Willoughby
A1 - Wirth, R.J.
A1 - Clancy Blair
KW - Early childhood
KW - executive function
KW - Item response theory
KW - Measurement
KW - preschool
KW - Psychometrics
AB - This study demonstrates the merits of evaluating a newly developed battery of executive function tasks, designed for use in early childhood, from the perspective of item response theory (IRT). The battery was included in the 48-month assessment of the Family Life Project, a prospective longitudinal study of 1292 children oversampled from low-income and African American families. IRT models were applied to a select set of tasks to demonstrate empirically (a) a principled method for item evaluation, including the utility of item characteristic curves; (b) how to explicitly test whether the measurement properties of executive function tasks are invariant across mutually exclusive subgroups of youths; (c) how the precision of measurement of a given task can vary according to underlying child ability; and (d) the utility of using IRT-based versus percentage correct scores. Results are discussed with respect to the importance of developing psychometrically sound and scalable instruments that facilitate the measurement of interindividual differences in intraindividual change of executive function across the early childhood period.
VL - 108
UR - http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022096510000676
IS - 3
JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
ER -
TY - JOUR
T1 - EEG power and coherence during preschoolers' performance of an executive function battery
JF - Developmental Psychobiology
Y1 - 2011
A1 - Swingler, Margaret M.
A1 - Michael T. Willoughby
A1 - Calkins, Susan D.
KW - development
KW - EEG coherence
KW - EEG power
KW - executive function
KW - frontal lobe
KW - preschool
AB - The current study investigated a set of abilities collectively referred to as executive function (EF). Substantial improvement in EF ability occurs between 3 and 6 years of age (e.g., Carlson [2005] Developmental Neuropsychology, 28(2):595–616). This improvement is thought to reflect changes in brain development, especially in areas of prefrontal cortex and frontal cortex, which occur during this time period (e.g., Luu & Posner [2003] Brain 126:2119–2120). Little work has examined preschoolers' cortical activity during EF tasks, despite the frequent use of performance on such tasks as indirect measures of (pre)frontal functioning. The current study measured continuous EEG activity in 104 preschool aged children as they completed a battery of EF tasks. Changes from baseline to task performance in EEG activity (power, coherence) were used as predictors of EF ability. Results indicated that changes from baseline to task engagement in EEG coherence, but not EEG power, were significantly related to performance on the EF battery in our sample. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 53:771–784, 2011.
VL - 53
UR - http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/dev.v53.8http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/dev.20588
IS - 8
JO - Dev. Psychobiol.
ER -
TY - JOUR
T1 - Test-retest reliability of a new executive function battery for use in early childhood
JF - Child Neuropsychology
Y1 - 2011
A1 - Michael T. Willoughby
A1 - Clancy Blair
KW - Early childhood
KW - executive function
KW - Latent variables
KW - preschool
KW - Retest reliability
AB - This study reported test-retest reliability for a newly developed executive function battery designed for use in early childhood. A total of 140 predominantly low-income children (M = 48.1 months; 51% male; 43% African American) completed up to six tasks on two occasions an average of 18 (Mdn = 16) days apart. Pearson correlations between individual task scores indicated moderate retest reliability (mean r = .60; range = .52−.66) similar to that observed in other retest studies of executive function in preschool, school-aged, and adult samples. In contrast, confirmatory factor analyses of performance on the task battery across time indicated high retest reliability (
= .95) that was identical to that observed in a recent study that used an identical method involving a sample of older adults. The short-term test-retest reliability of executive function in early childhood is comparable to that observed in childhood and adult samples. The retest reliability of children's performance on batteries of executive function tasks is appreciably stronger than the retest reliability of their performance on individual tasks. Studies that focus on inter- and intraindividual differences in executive function would be better served by using scores that are derived from task batteries than those derived from individual tasks.
VL - 17
UR - http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09297049.2011.554390
IS - 6
JO - Child Neuropsychology
ER -