The development of cognitive functioning indices in early childhood

How do the cognitive processes matter in the event-based preschoolers' prospective memory?

Background

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform an intended action at a specific future moment. The current study examined the impact of age, task focality, and cue salience on PM in children aged 2 to 6 years, based on the multiprocess theory of PM and the executive framework of PM development. Additionally, the study explored the relationship between various cognitive abilities and their association with PM performance.

Methods

A total of 224 preschool-aged children, aged 2-6, engaged in event-based PM tasks with varying cognitive demands. The tasks were either focal or nonfocal, with salient or nonsalient cues. Additionally, individual differences in cognitive abilities were measured.

Results

The results support previous indications that even very young children can successfully complete event-based PM tasks. The accuracy of PM display improved with age, especially between the ages of 3 and 4. Better performance was observed in focal PM tasks compared to nonfocal PM tasks. Additionally, preschoolers' PM performance correlated with various cognitive abilities, including fluid intelligence, retrospective memory, inhibitory control, working memory, and language ability. These correlations varied depending on the child's age and the task's nature. For both focal and nonfocal PM tasks, cognitive abilities partially mediated the relationship between age and PM performance.

Conclusion

In summary, this study comprehensively explores the specific roles played by age and fundamental cognitive abilities in event-based PM performance among preschool-aged children.

Exploring the Accuracy and Consistency of a School Readiness Assessment Tool for Preschoolers: Reliability, Validity and Measurement Invariance Analysis

This study focuses on examining the psychometric properties of the DIFER test, a widely used assessment tool for measuring school readiness. DIFER, which stands for Diagnostic Assessment Systems for Development, has gained prominence in Hungary and some European countries as an effective means of evaluating children's readiness for school. By investigating the reliability and validity of the DIFER test, this study aims to enhance the understanding of the suitability of the DIFER test for cross-cultural and longitudinal studies in assessing school readiness. Conducted as a survey study, the research involved 3050 Hungarian students from Slovakia and Hungary. Employing Rasch analysis and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA) aid in verifying the precision of the DIFER test as a valuable assessment instrument for determining school readiness. The results revealed a strong alignment between the difficulty level of the test and students' actual abilities, demonstrating its reliability and validity. Importantly, the analysis found measurement invariance across various factors, including country, gender, and age. This indicates the consistent performance of the DIFER test in assessing school readiness across diverse groups. However, mean differences in latent abilities were observed among different age groups, indicating that older students exhibited notably higher proficiency in pre-mathematical skills compared to their younger counterparts. The findings offer valuable insights to educators, providing a reliable tool for assessing school readiness and identifying areas for improvement.

Can training in the approximate number system improve the informal mathematics ability of preschoolers?

Recent studies show that comparison or arithmetic training in the approximate number system (ANS) can improve the early mathematics ability of preschool children. However, no studies have compared the training effects of ANS comparison training with those of ANS arithmetic training on the early mathematics ability of preschool children. The current study pseudorandomly assigned 87 children aged 4-5 years to one of three training groups (the ANS comparison, ANS arithmetic, and control groups) for 4 weeks of training. The results showed that compared with the control group, the ANS comparison training and ANS arithmetic training equally improved the ANS acuity and informal mathematics ability of preschool children. In addition, the study found that there may be a bidirectional causal relationship between ANS and mathematics in preschoolers, but this relationship needs to be further investigated using longitudinal studies. Taken together, these findings emphasize the importance of ANS-based training in improving preschoolers' ANS acuity and informal mathematics ability before formal school enrollment.

Prospective longitudinal study investigating predictors of childhood injuries from Growing Up in New Zealand cohort: study protocol

BACKGROUND

Injury is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide and yet preventable and predictable. In New Zealand (NZ), unintentional injury is the leading cause of emergency department visits, hospitalisations and death among children, making it a significant public health concern.

OBJECTIVE

To identify the factors that place young children in NZ at an increased risk of unintentional injury.

METHODS

This study will investigate injuries among children from the prospective Growing Up in NZ birth cohort of 6853 children and their families. The primary outcome of interest is injury events where medical treatment was sought. The data sources include parental reports of child injury and Accident Compensation Corporation-NZ's no-fault injury compensation system-injury claims. The linked datasets will be utilised to examine the distribution of life course exposures and outcome data using descriptive statistics. A temporal multilevel model will then be developed to examine relationships between neighbourhood, child and family characteristics and injury from birth to 5 years of age for all children for whom parental consent to link data were obtained.

DISCUSSION

The findings of this research will help to identify how the multiplicity of influences between children, family and their broader societal context acting across time affect their risk of experiencing a preschool injury. This information will provide an evidence base to inform context-relevant strategies to reduce and prevent childhood injuries.