Executive Functioning Mediates Predictions of Youth Academic and Social Development from Parenting Behavior

On the Broader Significance of Maternal Sensitivity: Mothers' Early and Later Sensitive Parenting Matter to Children's Language, Executive Function, Academics, and Self-Reliance

Researchers have demonstrated the important contribution of mothers' sensitive parenting to children's developing cognition over the first 5 years of life, yet studies examining sensitivity beyond the early years, controlling for earlier effects, are limited. In this exploratory study, we examined the developmental pathways through which mothers' early and later sensitive parenting transacted with children's language, executive function, academics, and self-reliance to predict child outcomes from infancy to adolescence. To a national longitudinal dataset (n = 1364; 52% male; 80% white), we applied random intercept cross-lagged panel modeling to examine between-person and within-person associations for maternal sensitivity and child outcomes. Our findings show that over the first 15 years of life relations between maternal sensitivity and these child outcomes are best characterized by stable, trait-like associations that persist over time with limited state-like time-varying associations. Importantly, we found that maternal sensitivity at both early and later developmental stages is associated with these between-person differences. Given the nature of these associations over four developmental stages, we extend prior research by demonstrating that mothers' sensitivity is enduring because of its consistency both early and later in development.

The Effects of Pubertal Timing on Academic Performance in Adolescence and Career Success in Adulthood: Evidence from a 16-year Longitudinal Study

Previous research showed inconsistent effects of pubertal timing on adolescent academic performance and adult career success. Moreover, the relative importance of biological vs. perceived pubertal timing has not been examined. This study examined effects of biological and perceived pubertal timing on academic performance throughout adolescence and career success in adulthood together with sex differences in an understudied population of pre-dominantly Black youth from lower income families. The sample included 704 youth (52% male, 76% Black, 22% White) interviewed at four time points (Mean ages: 11.8, 13.2, 17.6, and 27.7 years). The results from a mediation path model showed that among males, perceived off-time pubertal timing uniquely predicted lower concurrent academic performance as well as lower objective career success in adulthood; this effect was mediated by lower academic performance throughout adolescence. Additionally, results from bivariate correlation analyses showed associations between early biological pubertal timing and lower concurrent academic performance in males and early perceived pubertal timing and lower concurrent academic performance among females. These findings contribute to the understanding of more nuanced links between pubertal timing, academic performance and subsequent career success in an understudied population of pre-dominantly Black youth from lower income families.

Associations among teacher-child interaction, children's executive function and children's comprehensible vocabulary

Objective

To understand the working mechanism and the relationships among the quality of teacher-child interaction (TCI), children's comprehensible vocabulary (CV) and executive function (EF).

Methods

Using stratified sampling, 900 children (boys 50.2%) and 60 preschool teachers were recruited from 4 places in China for testing, and five measurement tools, including the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R), the Stroop test, a card sorting task, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV), were used.

Results

For every additional unit of TCI, EF increases by 0.55 units; For every additional unit of EF, CV increases by 0.55 units; For every additional unit of CV, EF increases by 0.55 units; For every additional unit of CV, TCI increases by 0.38 units; For every additional unit of TCI, CV increases by 0.38 units. In the Model of TCI-EF-CV, the estimated value of TCI and the total effect of comprehensible vocabulary is 0.18; Z = 9.84, which is significantly greater than 1.96 at the bias-corrected 95% confidence interval and at the percentile 95% confidence interval (0.15, 0.23), both of which do not contain 0. The direct effect of TCI and CV is significant and indirect effects account for 39%. In the Model of TCI-CV-EF, the total effect of TCI on executive function is 0.09 (Z = 6.14), the direct effect is not significant with bias-corrected 95% confidence interval and 95% confidence interval (-0.01, 0.03), both of which include 0.

Conclusion

There are two-way effects among children's EF and CV, TCI and CV. EF plays a mediating role in the influence of TCI on CV. TCI positively predicts children's EF, but this mainly depends on CV. Therefore, TCI plays a positive role in the development of children's CV and EF.

Longitudinal Pathways from Mothers’ and Fathers’ Warmth and Control to Children’s Social and Academic Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Children’s Executive Functioning Difficulty

Objectives: This study examined longitudinal pathways from mothers’ and fathers’ warmth and control to children’s prosocial and externalizing problem behaviors as well as academic outcome. The study also explored whether children’s executive functioning difficulty plays the mediating role in the links between mothers’ and fathers’ parenting behaviors and children’s social and academic outcomes.Methods: Participants were 1,671 children and their parents which were retrieved from the Panel Study on Korean Children. Direct relations between parenting variables and children’s social and academic outcomes were examined. Indirect effects of children’s executive functioning difficulty were also investigated in these associations. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the longitudinal relations among maternal and paternal parenting behaviors, children’s executive functioning difficulty, and their social and academic outcomes. The bootstrapping method was also used to examine the indirect effects of children’s executive functioning difficulty in the links between parenting variables and children’s social and academic outcomes.Results: Mothers' and fathers' warm parenting was negatively related to children’s executive functioning difficulty, which in turn predicted their subsequent prosocial and externalizing problem behaviors, as well as academic outcome. Moreover, indirect relations between parenting variables and children’s social and academic outcomes via children’s executive functioning difficulty were found.Conclusion: The result of this study suggests the importance of parental warmth in children's social and academic outcomes. The present results also emphasize the role of children’s executive functioning difficulty as the pivotal mechanism that explains how mothers’ and fathers’ warm parenting predicts subsequent children’s outcomes in social and academic domains.

Early executive and school functioning: Protective roles of home environment by income

This study used data from the Family Life Project (N=1,227), a longitudinal study of child development. We tested a three-way interaction in which positive parenting and learning materials in the home from age 6-36 months and family income predicted children's executive functioning (EF) at 58 months. We also tested whether this interaction predicted early school functioning, specifically behavioral and academic skills in the 1^st grade. The interactive effects of positive parenting and learning materials differed by family income. For children in families of lower income, more learning materials and positive parenting predicted better EF, and in turn, better early school functioning. For children in families of higher income, only positive parenting significantly predicted EF, which in turn, predicted better early school functioning. Findings suggest that more targeted policy and program support for enrichment and positive parenting may bolster efforts to combat poverty.

Social skills moderate the time-varying association between aggression and peer rejection among children with and without ADHD

Although childhood aggression is typically associated with peer rejection, some children concurrently employ coercive and socially skilled behavior and successfully avoid negative peer outcomes. However, research on children's dual use of coercive and social behavior has largely employed cross-sectional designs with nonclinical populations and, as a result, little is known about the covariation of aggression with social skills, particularly among high-risk samples. We directly addressed this limitation by testing childhood aggression and social skills as separate time-varying predictors of prospective change in peer rejection in a sample of children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Two hundred and two 5-10-year-old children (M = 7.9 years, SD = 1.2) with and without ADHD were followed prospectively for 6 years. Key constructs, including children's overt aggression, social skills, and peer rejection, were collected at each of the three waves using multiple methods and informants. Controlling for demographic factors and time-varying ADHD symptoms, longitudinal change in child-, parent-, and teacher-reported aggression positively predicted prospective change in parent- and teacher-reported peer rejection. Importantly, predictions were moderated by parent- and teacher-reported social skills, such that aggression inversely predicted peer rejection for children with high social skills. These results demonstrate that social skills meaningfully alter trajectories of peer rejection predicted from cross-time variation in aggression. We discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of these findings within a developmental psychopathology framework, including recommendations for directions for future research.