Development of directed global inhibition, competitive inhibition and behavioural inhibition during the transition between infancy and toddlerhood

Cognitive control in infancy: Attentional predictors using a tablet-based measure

Cognitive control is a predictor of later-life outcomes and may underpin higher order executive processes. The present study examines the development of early cognitive control during the first 24-month. We evaluated a tablet-based assessment of cognitive control among infants aged 18- and 24-month. We also examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between attentional disengagement, general cognitive skills and cognitive control. Participants (N = 60, 30 female) completed the tablet-task at 18- and 24-month of age. Attentional disengagement and general cognitive development were assessed at 5-, 8-, 12-, 18- and 24-month using an eye-tracking measure and the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL), respectively. The cognitive control task demonstrated good internal consistency, sensitivity to age-related change in performance and stable individual differences. No associations were found between infant cognitive control and MSEL scores longitudinally or concurrently. The eye-tracking task revealed that slower attentional disengagement at 8-month, but faster disengagement at 18-month, predicted higher cognitive control scores at 24-month. This task may represent a useful tool for measuring emergent cognitive control. The multifaceted relationship between attention and infant cognitive control suggests that the rapid development of the attentional system in infancy results in distinct attentional skills, at different ages, being relevant for cognitive control development.

Rates of family history of autism and ADHD varies with recruitment approach and socio-economic status

Family history (FH) of autism and ADHD is not often considered during the recruitment process of developmental studies, despite high recurrence rates. We looked at the rate of autism or ADHD amongst family members of young children (9 to 46 months) in three UK-based samples (N = 1055) recruited using different methods. The rate of FH-autism or FH-ADHD was 3%-9% for diagnosed cases. The rate was highest in the sample recruited through an online participant pool, which also consisted of the most socio-economically diverse families. Lower parental education and family income were associated with higher rates of FH-ADHD and lower parental education with increased FH-autism. Thus, recruitment strategies have a meaningful impact on neurodiversity and the conclusions and generalizations that can be drawn. Specifically, recruitment using crowdsourcing websites could create a sample that is more representative of the wider population, compared to those recruited through university-related volunteer databases and social media.

Predictors of executive function among 2 year olds from a Thai birth cohort

Executive function (EF) is a critical skill for academic achievement. Research on the psychosocial and environmental predictors of EF, particularly among Southeast Asian, agricultural, and low income/rural populations, is limited. Our longitudinal study explored the influence of agricultural environmental, psychosocial, and temperamental factors on children's emerging EF. Three-hundred and nine farm worker women were recruited during the first trimester of pregnancy. We evaluated the effects of prenatal insecticide exposure and psychosocial factors on "cool" (i.e., cognitive: A-not-B task, looking version) and "hot" EF (i.e., affective, response inhibition) measures of emerging EF. Maternal urine samples were collected monthly during pregnancy, composited, and analyzed for dialkylphosphate (DAP) metabolites of organophosphate insecticides. Psychosocial factors included socioeconomic status, maternal psychological factors, and quality of mother-child behavioral interactions. Backward stepwise regressions evaluated predictors of children's EF at 12 (N = 288), 18 (N = 277) and 24 (N = 280) months of age. We observed different predictive models for cool EF, as measured by A-not-B task, vs. hot EF, as measured by response inhibition tasks. Report of housing quality as a surrogate for income was a significant predictor of emerging EF. However, these variables had opposite effects for cool vs. hot EF. More financial resources predicted better cool EF performance but poorer hot EF performance. Qualitative findings indicate that homes with fewer resources were in tribal areas where children must remain close to an adult for safety reasons. This finding suggests that challenging physical environments (e.g., an elevated bamboo home with no electricity or running water), may contribute to development of higher levels of response inhibition through parental socialization methods that emphasize compliance. Children who tended to show more arousal and excitability, and joy reactivity as young infants in the laboratory setting had better cognitive performance. In contrast, maternal emotional availability was a significant predictor of hot EF. As expected, increased maternal exposure to pesticides during pregnancy was associated with worse cognitive performance but was not associated with inhibitory control. Identifying risk factors contributing to the differential developmental pathways of cool and hot EF will inform prevention strategies to promote healthy development in this and other unstudied rural, low income Southeast Asian farming communities.

Elucidating mechanisms linking mothers' and fathers' mind-mindedness in infancy with children's self-regulation at early preschool age

Extensive research has examined factors that contribute to individual differences in children's self-regulation (SR), a key social-emotional competence crucial to adjustment and mental health. Those differences become salient and measurable at late toddler age. In the CAPS (N = 200 community families), we examined mothers' and fathers' appropriate mind-mindedness (MM)-the ability to view the child as a psychological agent and correctly interpret his or her mental states-as a predictor of children's SR. MM was observed in parent-child interactions at 8 months, and SR was observed as the capacity for deliberate delay in standard tasks at 3 years. Reflecting a family system perspective, processes both within and across mother-child and father-child relationships were examined in one model. Parent-child mutual responsiveness, observed during interactions at 16 months, was modeled as a mediator of the paths from MM to SR. Fathers' MM had a significant, direct positive effect on SR; in addition, it enhanced mutual responsiveness in both father-child and mother-child dyads and promoted child SR through enhanced mother-child mutual responsiveness. The findings elucidate relatively poorly understood mechanisms linking parental MM in infancy with SR at early preschool age, highlight similarities and differences in the processes unfolding in mother-child and father-child relationships, and emphasize interparental dynamics in socialization.

Universality and context-specificity in early executive function development

A renewed interest in early executive function (i.e., EF or the conscious control of thought and behavior) development has led several research groups to suggest that EF may be emerging and is less coordinated (e.g., showing few relations between tasks) in the first few years (Devine et al., 2019; Gago Galvagno et al., 2021; Johansson et al., 2016; Miller & Marcovitch, 2015; Ribner et al., 2022). This potentially universal development in EF does not exclude the possibility that EF may also differ across context (e.g., Gago Galvagno et al., 2021; Lohndorf et al., 2019; Tran et al., 2015) reflecting unique strengths and development built within one's sociocultural environment. The present paper explores potential universal and context-specific early EF developments by focusing on three aims: (1) reviewing work on EF within the first two years of life that may speak to potential universality in the measurement, structure, growth, stability, and conceptualization of early EF (2) reviewing research that may speak to how the sociocultural context may play a role in context-specific development within early EF and (3) examining potential developmental EF frameworks for understanding universal and context-specific developments of early EF within context.

Predicting behavioral and brain markers of inhibitory control at preschool age from early measures of executive attention

Background

Inhibitory control (IC) is the ability to prevent prepotent responses when inappropriate. Longitudinal research on IC development has mainly focused on early childhood and adolescence, while research on IC development in the first years of life is still scarce. To address this gap in the literature, we explored the association between executive attention (EA) and elementary forms of IC in infancy and toddlerhood, with individual differences in IC later at 5 years of age.

Method

We conducted a five-wave longitudinal study in which children's EA and IC (n = 96) were tested at the age of 9 and 16 months and 2, 3, and 5 years. Children performed various age-appropriate EA and IC tasks in each wave, measuring inhibition of attention, endogenous control of attention, inhibition of the response, and conflict inhibition. At 5 years of age, IC was measured with a Go/No-go task while recording event-related potentials. After correlation analyses, structural equation model analyses were performed to predict IC at 5 years of age from EA and early IC measures.

Results

The results revealed that EA at 9 months predicted IC measures at 2 years of age. Likewise, measures of IC at 2 years predicted performance on the Go/No-go task at behavioral and neural levels. No direct association was found between EA at 9 months and IC at 5 years of age. We further observed that some EA and IC measures were not associated across time.

Conclusion

As we expected, EA skills in infancy and toddlerhood were related to better performance of children on IC tasks, toghether with a more mature inhibition-related brain functioning. Altogether, the results indicate that IC in early childhood could be predicted from EA and IC at 9 months and 2 years of age and suggest that the early emergence of IC relies on the development of particular EA and basic IC skills. However, some discontinuities in the longitudinal development of IC are observed in the first 5 years of life. These findings provide further support for the hierarchical model of IC development.

We need to talk about validity - A commentary on "Six solutions for more reliable infant research" from the viewpoint of an early executive functions researcher

In their methodological article, "Six solutions for more reliable infant research", Byers-Heinlein, Bergmann and Savalei (2021) present compelling arguments for why developmental researchers should report and consider measures of reliability more frequently in their work. They also provide useful guidance on solutions to this "reliability crisis". In this commentary, I highlight a further methodological aspect that I think is key to successful and robust infancy research, that of construct validity. I also discuss recent reliability data from my own research on early executive function development, analyses which were directly inspired by the target article.

Highlights

Considering measurement reliability and effect sizes is important for robust infant research and for optimising infant tasks to measure group-level effects or individual differences.Construct validity - making sure that we measure what we think we are measuring - is also important.A robust effect at the group-level may not always restrict reliability - it depends on the amount of true variation between infants.

Inhibitory control and problem solving in early childhood: Exploring the burdens and benefits of high self-control

Low inhibitory control (IC) is sometimes associated with enhanced problem-solving amongst adults, yet for young children high IC is primarily framed as inherently better than low IC. Here, we explore associations between IC and performance on a novel problem-solving task, amongst 102 English 2- and 3-year-olds (Study 1) and 84 Swedish children, seen at 18-months and 4-years (Study 2). Generativity during problem-solving was negatively associated with IC, as measured by prohibition-compliance (Study 1, both ages, Study 2 longitudinally from 18-months). High parent-reported IC was associated with poorer overall problem-solving success, and greater perseveration (Study 1, 3-year-olds only). Benefits of high parent-reported IC on persistence could be accounted for by developmental level. No concurrent association was observed between problem-solving performance and IC as measured with a Delay-of-Gratification task (Study 2, concurrent associations at 4-years). We suggest that, for young children, high IC may confer burden on insight- and analytic-aspects of problem-solving.

The early childhood inhibitory touchscreen task: A new measure of response inhibition in toddlerhood and across the lifespan

Research into the earliest development of inhibitory control is limited by a lack of suitable tasks. In particular, commonly used inhibitory control tasks frequently have too high language and working memory demands for children under 3 years of age. Furthermore, researchers currently tend to shift to a new set of inhibitory control tasks between infancy, toddlerhood, and early childhood, raising doubts about whether the same function is being measured. Tasks that are structurally equivalent across age could potentially help resolve this issue. In the current report, a new response inhibition task, the Early Childhood Inhibitory Touchscreen Task (ECITT), was developed. This task can be minimally modified to suit different ages, whilst remaining structurally equivalent. In the new task, participants have to overcome a tendency to respond to a frequently rewarded location on a touchscreen and instead make an alternative response. The ECITT was validated in three independent studies (with additional data, N = 166, reported in Supporting Information). In Study 1 (N = 81), cross-sectional data indicated that inhibitory performance on the task improved significantly between 24 and 30 months of age. In Study 2 (N = 38), longitudinal data indicated steady improvement in inhibitory control between 18, 21 and 24 months, with significant stability in individual performance differences between each consecutive age in terms of accuracy (but not in terms of reaction time). Finally, in Study 3 (N = 64), inhibitory performance on a faster-paced version of the same task showed a similar developmental course across the lifespan (4-84 years) to other response inhibition tasks and was significantly correlated with Stop-signal performance. The ECITT extends the assessment of response inhibition earlier than previous tasks-into early toddlerhood. Because the task is simple and structurally equivalent across age, future longitudinal studies should benefit from using the ECITT to investigate the development of inhibitory control in a consistent manner across the toddler years and beyond.