Developmental trajectories in toddlers' self-restraint predict individual differences in executive functions 14 years later: A behavioral genetic analysis.

Abstract

We examined whether self-restraint in early childhood predicted individual differences in three executive functions (EFs; inhibiting prepotent responses, updating working memory, and shifting task sets) in late adolescence in a sample of ~950 twins. At ages 14, 20, 24, and 36 months, the children were shown an attractive toy and told not to touch it for 30 seconds. Latency to touch the toy increased with age, and latent class growth modeling distinguished two groups of children that differed in their latencies to touch the toy at all 4 time points. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the three EFs (measured with latent variables at age 17 years) were decomposed into a Common EF factor (isomorphic to response inhibition ability) and two factors specific to updating and shifting, respectively. Less restrained children had significantly lower scores on the Common EF factor, equivalent scores on the Updating-specific factor, and higher scores on the Shifting-specific factor than the more restrained children. The less restrained group also had lower IQ scores, but this effect was entirely mediated by the EF components. Twin models indicated that the associations were primarily genetic in origin for the Common EF variable but split between genetics and nonshared environment for the Shifting-specific variable. These results suggest a biological relation between individual differences in self-restraint and EFs, one that begins early in life and persists into late adolescence.

Exploring the differential associations between components of executive functioning and reactive and proactive aggression

“…In the original framework, Miyake & colleagues (Miyake et al, 2000;Miyake & Friedman, 2012) have demonstrated considerable empirical support for a 3--factor model of EF, which has been further supported by results from numerous studies that reveal the same pattern across various samples and using various EF tasks (Friedman et al, 2011;Latzman & Markon, 2010;Rose, Feldman, & Jankowski, 2011;Vaughan & Giovanello, 2010).…”

Early Development of Executive Attention

“…Interestingly, they also showed that infants who differentially inhibit attention depending on the interest of the target (i.e., infants who inhibit attention to distractors in a greater proportion when engaging targets are presented compared to boring targets, reflecting a more endogenous control of attention) are the ones that resolve spatial conflict more efficiently later by 2 years of age. Similarly, toddlers who demonstrate greater inhibitory control skills by 14 months of age, waiting longer to touch a toy that they were asked not to touch, also show better general EA skills at 17 years of age [80].…”

Executive functions in the context of complex learning: Malleable moderators?

“…The role of shifting for academic achievements in adulthood is not yet clear. Some indications could be taken from research showing a relationship of common executive functioning assessed by one measure in early childhood and a shifting factor in adolescence (Friedman, Miyake, Robinson, & Hewitt, 2011). In addition, some studies demonstrate that working memory can already be separated from shifting in late childhood and executive functions show considerable stability from adolescence into early adulthood (Friedman et al, 2016).…”

“…In no-switch trials, the same task has to be performed on consecutive tasks (i.e., the same cue appears consecutively). In switch trials, the task changes from one trial to the subsequent one (i.e., the cue changes) (Friedman et al, 2011). Notably, recent research proposes applying alternative scoring methods to measure shifting.…”