Home learning environment and physical development impact children’s executive function development and literacy in rural Côte d’Ivoire

An exploratory analysis of divergent patterns in reading progression during a tablet-based literacy program

“…These findings support prior research establishing working memory as a robust and consistent predictor of children's reading achievement (Pelegrina et al, 2015;Follmer, 2018;Peng et al, 2018). In addition, these findings corroborate recent work conducted in rural Côte d'Ivoire showing that a latent EF variable comprising working memory and inhibitory control emerged as the strongest predictor of children's literacy over and above other known predictors of literacy development, including home learning environment and age (Jasińska et al, 2022). Our study also sheds new light on the important role of working memory skills in supporting children's literacy development in a tablet-based program, specifically for children who show initial low literacy achievement prior to the intervention.…”

“…While most prior work has examined the contribution of working memory to children's reading achievement in high-income countries, a growing body of evidence has established the relevance of these skills for early literacy development in developing contexts (Obradović and Willoughby, 2019;Willoughby et al, 2019) (Willoughby et al, 2019) and Ghana (Wolf and McCoy, 2019). Recent work conducted on a sample of primary schoolaged learners (6-14 years old) in rural Ivory Coast found that children's EF skills, as indexed by working memory and inhibitory control, were the largest predictor of literacy over measures of children's learning environment and physical development (Jasińska et al, 2022). Nonetheless, no study to date has examined working memory as a unique predictor of high versus low progress in reading during a tabletbased literacy program, over and above other factors known to support literacy development.…”

“…We hypothesized that children who showed strong working memory skills would benefit more from the literacy program and demonstrate higher progress in reading. Based on prior research showing that working memory skills predicted literacy over and above the home literacy environment (Jasińska et al, 2022), we also expected working memory to emerge as the strongest predictor of children's reading progress status. Thus, our study seeks to contribute new insight into the relative contributions of HLLE and working memory as important determinants of reading progress, specifically in the context of a tablet-based literacy program in a developing country.…”

Moulding environmental contexts to optimise neurodiverse executive function performance and development: A goodness‐of‐fit account

“…Extensive evidence indicates that childhood EFs are positively associated with access to resources and enriching interactions in the home (Hendry et al, 2022;Jasi nska et al, 2022;Kos ¸kulu-Sancar et al, 2023) and school or Early Childhood Education and Care setting (Davies et al, 2021;Kos ¸kulu-Sancar et al, 2023;Vandenbroucke et al, 2018).…”

“…Extensive evidence indicates that childhood EFs are positively associated with access to resources and enriching interactions in the home (Hendry et al, 2022; Jasińska et al, 2022; Koşkulu‐Sancar et al, 2023) and school or Early Childhood Education and Care setting (Davies et al, 2021; Koşkulu‐Sancar et al, 2023; Vandenbroucke et al, 2018). Sheridan, McLaughlin and others have suggested that access to resources and enriching interactions can be considered in terms of a deprivation‐enrichment scale, where at the one end children are deprived of the complex cognitive and social inputs (and perhaps moderate stressors) required for optimum cortical development, and at the other end children are exposed, with the support of responsive caregiver(s), to a range of sensory inputs, rich language and reciprocal interactions, and appropriate cognitive and physical challenge (Sheridan & McLaughlin, 2014).…”