Intervention studies indicate that children’s childcare experiences can be leveraged to support the development of executive functioning (EF). The role of more normative childcare experiences is less clear. Increasingly, theory and empirical work suggest that individual differences in children’s physiological stress systems may be associated with meaningful differences in the way they experience these early environments. Using data from a large population-based sample of predominantly low-income rural families, we tested the degree to which children’s childcare experiences—quantity, quality, and type—in the first 3 years of life predicted emerging EF. Moreover, we examined whether these effects varied as a function of children’s basal cortisol levels in infancy and toddlerhood— an indicator of hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis stress physiology. Our results showed that higher quality care predicted more effective EF at 48 months, irrespective of quantity or type. This relation did not vary as a function of children’s early cortisol levels. Attending greater hours of care per week was also related to EF; however—consistent with theory—the positive association between spending more time in childcare and more positive EF extended only to children with low levels of basal cortisol at 7 or 24 months of age. Attending center-based care was unassociated with EF. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
UR - http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/a0034700 JO - Developmental Psychology ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Executive function in early childhood: Longitudinal measurement invariance and developmental change. JF - Psychological Assessment Y1 - 2012 A1 - Michael T. Willoughby A1 - Wirth, R. J. A1 - Clancy Blair AB -This study tested the longitudinal measurement invariance and developmental changes of a newly developed battery of executive function (EF) tasks for use in early childhood. The battery was administered in the Family Life Project—a prospective longitudinal study (N = 1,292) of families who were oversampled from low-income and African American families at the birth of a new child—at assessments conducted when the child was 3, 4, and 5 years old. All 6 individual EF tasks exhibited strong measurement invariance over time. The EF battery, which was derived from the 6 individual tasks, exhibited partial strong invariance over time. Second-order latent growth curve models revealed individual differences in the levels but not rates of change in latent EF ability. The functional form of change was nonlinear; 60% of the total change in EF ability that was observed between the 3- and 5-year assessments occurred between the Year 3 and Year 4 assessments. Results are discussed with respect to the importance of establishing scalable measures of EF ability prior to investigating experiences that predict or are predicted by changes in EF during early childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
VL - 24 UR - http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/a0025779 IS - 2 JO - Psychological Assessment 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 -