Early executive functioning in a global context: Developmental continuity and family protective factors

Abstract

This study extends the methodological and theoretical understanding of executive functions (EFs) in preschoolers from low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMIC). First, the authors describe a rigorous process of adapting and evaluating six EF tasks to produce a culturally and developmentally appropriate measure of emerging EFs in a large sample of at‐risk children in rural Pakistan. Next, the authors identify critical developmental and family factors that relate to preschoolers’ EFs over the first 4 years of life. Direct assessment of children's general cognitive skills at age two showed developmental continuity with EFs at age four, and these early cognitive skills mediated the effect of an antecedent parenting intervention on EFs as well as associations of targeted individual and family factors with EFs. Furthermore, directly assessed maternal cognitive capacities and observed maternal scaffolding uniquely predicted EFs in preschoolers. This study is also the first to demonstrate a significant overlap between direct assessments of IQ and EFs in young children from LMIC. Children's general intelligence mediated the associations of EFs with antecedent physical growth and cognitive skills as well as concurrent family factors (maternal verbal intelligence, maternal scaffolding, and home stimulation). After controlling for shared variance between preschoolers’ general intelligence and EFs, three factors emerged as unique predictors of EFs: exposure to an early parenting intervention, physical growth status at age two, and number of older siblings. The findings have important implications for the design of interventions that aim to improve EFs in young children in LMIC. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/316329544/5abde94cd7

Introduction to special issue on global child development studies

“…Numerous studies included in this issue present adaptation and/ or testing of behavioral and neuroimaging measures to ensure that these are locally appropriate, feasible, and acceptable for measurement of children's behavioral (Milosavljevic et al, ; Obradović et al, ; Willoughby, Piper, Oyanga, & Merseth, ), language (Dulay, Cheung, & McBride, ; Jasińska, Wolf, Jukes, & Dubeck, ; Knauer, Kariger, Jakiela, Ozier, & Fernald, ; Lervåg, Dolean, Tincas, & Melby‐Lervåg, ), and neural development (Lloyd‐Fox et al, ; Perdue et al, ; Pyykkö et al, ; Turesky et al, ; Wijeakumar, Kumar, M. Delgado Reyes, Tiwari, & Spencer, ). Milosavljevic et al (), for example, test the adaptation of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning in the Gambia and cast light on developmental patterns in children aged 5–24 months.…”

“…Almost all studies included in this special issue cast light on specific risk and protective factors including household level multidimensional economic well‐being (Turbeville, Aber, Weinberg, Richter, & Heerden, ), parenting behaviors and family experiences (Dulay et al, ; Obradović et al, ; Turesky et al, ), school climate (Starkey, Aber, & Crossman, ), violence, and neighborhood danger (Deater‐Deckard et al, ; Pellizzoni, Apuzzo, De Vita, Agostini, & Passolunghi, ), and physical activity (Cook et al, ). Many of these factors undermine or promote child development in similar ways in low‐, middle‐, and high‐income countries.…”

“…For example, Deater‐Deckard et al () show that parenting mediates the effects of the home environment and neighborhood danger on adolescent mental health and school problems across six LMIC, and Rubio‐Codina and Grantham‐McGregor () show that parental education and characteristics of the home environment mediate the effects of wealth on children's IQ and achievement. Obradović et al () show that cognitive and language skills at age 2 mediate the effects of an early parenting intervention, home stimulation, and maternal scaffolding on preschoolers’ executive functions.…”

“…Numerous studies included in this issue present adaptation and/ or testing of behavioral and neuroimaging measures to ensure that these are locally appropriate, feasible, and acceptable for measurement of children's behavioral (Milosavljevic et al, 2019;Obradović et al, 2019;Willoughby, Piper, Oyanga, & Merseth, 2019), language (Dulay, Cheung, & McBride, 2019;Jasińska, Wolf, Jukes, & Dubeck, 2019;Knauer, Kariger, Jakiela, Ozier, & Fernald, 2019;Lervåg, Dolean, Tincas, & Melby-Lervåg, 2019), and neural develop- (Cook et al, 2019). Many of these factors undermine or promote child development in similar ways in low-, middle-, and high-income countries.…”

“…for example, test the adaptation of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning in the Gambia and cast light on developmental patterns in children aged 5-24 months.They identify a pattern of older children receiving lower scores and suggest that this may reveal a developmental period during which infants at risk for cognitive delay begin to exhibit early behavioral manifestations of exposure to adversity (e.g., poverty and malnu-trition). Willoughby et al (2019) demonstrate the utility of computerized, performance-based executive functions measures in a large-scale study of preschool children in Kenya.Almost all studies included in this special issue cast light on specific risk and protective factors including household level multidimensional economic well-being(Turbeville, Aber, Weinberg, Richter, & Heerden, 2019), parenting behaviors and family experiences(Dulay et al, 2019;Obradović et al, 2019;Turesky et al, 2019), school climate(Starkey, Aber, & Crossman, 2019), violence,and neighborhood danger (Deater-Deckard et al, 2019; Pellizzoni, Apuzzo, De Vita, Agostini, & Passolunghi, 2019), and physical activ-ity…”