How do families help or hinder the emergence of early executive function?

Abstract

This chapter describes longitudinal findings from a socially diverse sample of 125 British children seen at ages two and four. Four models of social influence on executive function are tested, using multiple measures of family life as well as comprehensive assessments of children's executive functions. Our results confirm the importance of maternal scaffolding for young children's executive functions, but they also suggest positive effects of observational learning and adverse effects of disorganized and unpredictable family life; however, no support was found for an association between executive function and general positive characteristics of family interactions.

A secure base from which to regulate: Attachment security in toddlerhood as a predictor of executive functioning at school entry.

“…Although to our knowledge, maternal EF has never been investigated as a potential antecedent of mother-child attachment, studies have found that maternal EF relates to both child EF (Cuevas, DeaterDeckard, Kim-Spoon, Wang, et al, 2014;Hughes & Ensor, 2009) and maternal caregiving (Cuevas, Deater-Deckard, Kim-Spoon, Watson, et al, 2014), which itself is an important predictor of mother-child attachment (Bernier, Matte-Gagné, Bélanger, & Whipple, 2014).…”

“…Hence, it may be that mothers who have better executive capacities transmit these capacities to their children, for instance through direct scaffolding or child observational learning (Hughes & Ensor, 2009), while also being better equipped to provide the type of calm, consistent, and regulating caregiving that will give rise to secure attachment. While it has also been postulated that the transmission of maternal EF onto child EF may be genetically driven (e.g., Cuevas, Deater-Deckard, Kim-Spoon, Watson, et al, 2014), shared genetic characteristics appear somewhat unlikely to have played an important role in the results reported here.…”

The development of children’s inhibition: Does parenting matter?

“…First, parenting has been thought to influence both emotional regulation and cognitive abilities as two key elements of EF definition (Diamond, 2013;Miller & Cohen, 2001). For its effect on the emotional side, Hughes and Ensor (2009) proposed the global imitation model, which emphasizes the positive effect of a calm and positive parental response to children's negative emotion on ''effortful control,'' a key component in children's emotional regulation closely related to EF (Valiente, Lemery-Chalfant, & Reiser, 2007). The longitudinal association between negative emotional reactivity during infancy and EF at 4 years of age has recently been documented (Ursache, Blair, Stifter, & Voegtline, 2013).…”

“…In the absence of overarousal, it is contended that children are better able to focus their attention and regulate their behavior (Dierckx et al, 2011;Feldman, 2003). For its effect on cognitive abilities, Hughes and Ensor (2009) suggested the scaffolding model, which refers to parents' ability to provide information and assistance in a manner that supports their children's attention, memory, and language abilities (Landry, Miller-Loncar, Smith, & Swank, 2002). In their empirical study, Hughes and Ensor (2009, p. 49) provided support for this scaffolding model: the extent to which mothers engaged in open-ended questions, praise, encouragement, or elaboration during a structured activity predicted individual differences in children's EF performances.…”

Curvas de referência de pontos brutos no Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale de crianças e adolescentes

“…Por ser uma escala composta de vários subtestes que avaliam o desempenho cognitivo dos dois anos até a idade adulta, permite caracterizar o perfil das habilidades cognitivas em estudos transversais e longitudinais (Deary & Batty, 2007;Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2003;Hughes & Ensor, 2009). …”