Executive Functions and Attentional Control of Preschool Children
Executive Functions (EF) are self-regulation processes (e.g., response inhibition and emotion regulation) that allow us to plan and complete activities in our daily lives. EF first emerges in infancy and undergoes substantial development and reorganization during the preschool years. Individual differences in children’s EF are predictive of later academic success and overall well-being and EF difficulties are often associated with clinical diagnoses and behavior issues.
Attentional control (AC) are volitional attention processes (e.g., sustained attention, selective attention) is similarly critical for everyday goal-directed actions. AC exhibits a developmental trajectory similar to EF and is also predictive of school performance and optimal outcomes. While it is widely accepted that attention is central to the development to EF, it is not clear if attentional control is best conceptualized as another EF process or if it is a related yet distinct construct in preschool children.
The lack of understanding how attentional control and EF are related in early childhood muddles our knowledge of these key foundational skills. This lack of clarity is not only significant for researchers, but also for educators and clinicians who want are focused on providing effective early intervention for children who might be at risk for developmental delays or behaviors. Further insights of EF and AC in early childhood are also of interest to parents/caregivers who want to do all they can to set their children up to thrive in school and their relationship as they get older.
Given its importance to well-being and success later in life, it is not surprising much research has focused on what factors contribute and support EF and AC during the first years of life. Previous research has established that societal factors (socioeconomic status, early childcare education), internal factors (physiological regulation at rest, temperament), or children’s cognitive abilities (language abilities) contribute and support these foundational skills. These studies usually only consider one (or two) factors, providing an incomplete picture of the mechanism supporting EF and AC skills. A fuller understanding of EF and AC in early childhood is of significant importance for those supporting and interacting with young children.
This project sought to address the following research questions:
1. How is Attentional Control associated with other EF processes in preschool children
2. What societal factors and internal factors simultaneously contribute to different EF and AC processes in early childhood?
Participants: 137 preschool children (69 female, M = 50.79 months, range = 3.5-5 years) participated in the current project.
Procedure: Preschool children completed a series of lab tasks (“games”) to assess their ER (response inhibition, emotion regulation, working memory), Attentional Control (sustained attention, selective attention), and general abilities, (language production and comprehension and reasoning skills). Children also had their cardiac activity measured as an assessment of physiological regulation. Pilot testing was conducted to ensure all “games” were child friendly and kept them engaged during the duration of the study session. Parents/caregivers completed surveys about their child’s temperament (surgency, negative affect, and effortful control), socioeconomic status, family structure, and early childhood education.
Analysis 1 took a data-driven approach to examine how EF and attentional control skills were related in preschool children. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted with SPSS software using principal axis factoring as the extraction method, with varimax (orthogonal) as the rotation method. The number of factors was determined by considering eigenvalues above one and confirmed by the scree plot.
The EFA yielded 4 factors where EF measures mainly loaded onto factors 3 and 4 and AC measures loaded onto factors 1 and 2, suggesting that AC was likely separable from other EF processes. The loadings were consistent with previous studies including response inhibition and working memory usually loaded onto the same factor whereas response inhibition and emotion regulation have been found to load onto different factors. The four factors were named: visual executive attention, processing speed, working memory, and delay of gratification based on specific task analyses.
Analysis 2 was conducted with SPSS software to examine how children’s demographics (age, gender), social factors (e.g., socio-economic status, early childhood education), internal factors (physiological regulation at rest, temperament), or children’s cognitive abilities (language abilities) predicted the self-regulation skills identified in Analysis 1.
Preliminary correlation analyses conducted between all predictive factors and self-regulation skills identified the following predictive variables were children age, gender, language abilities, physiological regulation, and negative affect and were included in further analyses.
Multiple regression model tests were conducted to examine whether multiple factors predicted the data-driven factors identified in Analysis 1.; statistically significant predictors are denoted in bold text and darker arrows in the diagrams below.
The significant predictors for executive visual attention were age and gender. Specifically, children’s executive visual attention improved with age and girls as a group tended to exhibit better executive visual attention.
The significant predictors for processing speed were age, vocabulary comprehension, and baseline RSA. Children’s processed speed became faster as they got older. Children with higher vocabulary scores had slower processing speed, which may seem counter intuitive. The measures that loaded onto factor two were reaction times to common classes of stimuli (animals and common modes of transportation). Perhaps these children were labeling each object as it appeared, leading to slower reaction times. In this case slower reaction times may not be inefficient processing, but deeper processing. Children with higher baseline RSA values, or were calmer at rest, may have been more likely notice things in their environment.
The significant predictors of working memory were age and vocab. Specifically, children’s working memory improved with age and children with better vocabulary tended to have better working memory, It is possible these children were verbally rehearsing instructions or important information, making it more likely to stay in working memory.
The only significant predictor of delay of gratification was negative affect. Perhaps these children tended to react to novel situations with sadness or anger, making them less likely to regulate their emotions during the study.
While above interpretations are speculative, the multiple regression models collectively indicated that the predictor variables were differentially associated with the four factors, suggesting that the development of each of the self-regulation skill might be dependent on different factors. Therefore, it is likely that different EF and AC skills are somewhat separate in the preschool years.
It is worth noting that the current sample had limitations when conducting Analysis 2. First, the assessment of societal factors including socio-economic status and early childhood education were based only on parent/caregiver report, which does not capture the potential richness of these factors. Second, the current sample only consisted of 137 children and may not have had sufficient statistical power to pick up on more subtle associations. Despite these limitations, Analysis 2 illustrates that more comprehensive studies are needed to clarify what factors may contribute to the development of such foundational skills.
Analysis 3 took a theoretically driven approach to examining the underlying structure of EF and AC in preschool children to ground it more in existing literature. Based on a review of the literature, the three possible underlying structures for preschool children were:
1) 1 Factor Solution-All EF and AC skills are manifestations of the same common ability.
2) 2 Factor Solution-AC skills are district from other EF skills.
3) 3 Factor Solution-AC skills are distinct from EF and EF consists of multiple distinct skills
Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and model comparisons conducted using R found that that the 2 Factor Solution with one factor consisting of AC skills and a related but distinct second factor consisting of EF skills was the best fitting model for the current preschool sample.. This is consistent with the idea that attentional control is related yet somewhat distinct from other EF skills in preschool children. More information about analysis 3 can be found in the following peer-reviewed publications.
Key Takeaways:
This project and all 3 analyses indicated that attention was not simply another facet EF in preschool children, but rather AC was its own district construct whose development is likely impacted by somewhat different factors. This project highlights the need for more comprehensive examinations of how self-regulation processes develop in early childhood.
Through this project, I gained expertise in early childhood development and social science research methods, authoring data collection, management, and analysis standard operating procedures, and leading 6 team members in data processing, analysis and presentations to general audiences. I also became proficient with analytical tools (R, SPSS) and method specific software (Observer XT for observational methods and BioPAC for physiological methods).