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Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment

Gepubliceerd in:

01-12-2014

Executive Function Among Preschool Children: Unitary Versus Distinct Abilities

Auteurs: Matthew D. Lerner, Christopher J. Lonigan

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment | Uitgave 4/2014

Abstract

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are considered related but separable executive functions (EFs) among adults and adolescents. Although available evidence suggests that these constructs have not diverged, especially among younger preschool children, questions remain regarding the age at which separable factors emerge.This study used confirmatory factor analysis to test a 2-factor model of EF among 289 preschool children whose ages ranged from 45 to 63 months (M = 55.74, SD = 7.56). As hypothesized, the model including separate but related factors provided a significantly better fit than a unitary model, indicating the presence of distinct WM and IC factors. Based on evidence that WM and IC measured during preschool relate differently to a variety of academic and behavioral outcomes, it was hypothesized that a model including separate factors for each EF would fit the observed data better than a single-factor model. Although the two-factor model provided the best fit for the full sample, the correlation between WM and IC factors was significantly higher for younger (ϕ = .95) than older (ϕ = .68) children, indicating increasing divergence as a function of age.

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Because OS had the lowest factor loading among the four WM tasks (.34, p < .001) and the WM factor accounted for less of the variance in this task (r ² = .11, p < .01) than the other three WM tasks (loadings ranged from .53-.60, r ²s ranged from .30-.36, all ps < .001), model comparisons were conducted with and without this task. The OS task was included in the final model because (a) the inclusion of this task did not change the results of the model comparison, (b) the factor loading and variance accounted for were statistically significant, and (c) removing any tasks included in the original model would make the model less strictly confirmatory.

For the multi-sample models using the sandwich estimator to adjust standard errors to account for the clustering of children within schools, fewer residuals were found to differ between groups (Size Ordering and Bird Dragon only), and the difference in the factor loading for Block Sorting emerged during the step in which all 10 factor loadings were constrained simultaneously.

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Titel: Executive Function Among Preschool Children: Unitary Versus Distinct Abilities
Auteurs: Matthew D. Lerner
Christopher J. Lonigan
Publicatiedatum: 01-12-2014
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment / Uitgave 4/2014
Print ISSN: 0882-2689
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-3505
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-014-9424-3

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