Neural correlates of inhibitory control and associations with cognitive outcomes in Bangladeshi children exposed to early adversities

Parental communicative input as a protective factor in Bangladeshi families living in poverty: A multi-dimensional perspective

Studies from high-income populations have shown that stimulating, supportive communicative input from parents promote children's cognitive and language development. However, fewer studies have identified specific features of input supporting the healthy development of children growing up in low- or middle-income countries. The current study proposes and tests a multi-dimensional framework for understanding whether and how caregiver communicative input mediates the associations between socio-economic conditions and early development. We also examine how caregiver conceptual scaffolding and autonomy support uniquely and synergistically explain variation in child outcomes. Participants were 71 Bangladeshi families with five-year-olds who were exposed to a range of biological and psychosocial hazards from birth. Caregiver-child interactions during snack sharing and semi-structured play were coded for caregiver conceptual scaffolding, autonomy support, and child engagement. Findings indicate that the two dimensions of input were correlated, suggesting that caregivers who provided richer conceptual scaffolds were simultaneously more supportive of children's autonomy. Notably, conceptual scaffolding and autonomy support each mediated associations between maternal education and child verbal intelligence quotient (IQ) scores. Further, caregivers who supported greater autonomy in their children had children who participated in conversations more actively, and these children in turn had higher performance IQ scores. When considered simultaneously, conceptual scaffolding was associated with verbal IQ over and above autonomy support, whereas autonomy support related to child engagement, controlling for conceptual scaffolding. These findings shed new light on how environmental factors may support early development, contributing to the design of family-centered, culturally authentic interventions. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/9v_8sIv7ako RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Studies from high-income countries have identified factors mitigating the impacts of socio-economic risks on development. Such research is scarce in low- and middle-income countries. The present study conceptualized and evaluated caregiver communicative input in Bangladeshi families along two interrelated yet distinct dimensions: conceptual scaffolding and autonomy support. Conceptual scaffolding and autonomy support individually mediated associations between maternal education and child verbal IQ, shedding light on protective factors in families living in poverty. Parents providing richer conceptual scaffolds were simultaneously more supportive of children's autonomy. However, the two dimensions each related to cognition and language through unique pathways.

Examining the relationship between psychosocial adversity and inhibitory control: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of children growing up in extreme poverty

Exposure to psychosocial adversity (PA) is associated with poor behavioral, physical, and mental health outcomes in adulthood. As these outcomes are related to alterations in developmental processes, growing evidence suggests that deficits in executive functions-inhibitory control in particular-may in part explain this relationship. However, literature examining the development of inhibitory control has been based on children in higher-resource environments, and little is known how low-resource settings might exacerbate the link between inhibitory control and health outcomes. In this context, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data during a Go/No-Go inhibitory control task and PA variables for 68 children aged 5 to 7 years living in Dhaka, Bangladesh, an area with a high prevalence of PA. The children's mothers completed behavioral questionnaires to assess the children's PA and their own PA. Whole-brain activation underlying inhibitory control was examined using the No-Go versus Go contrast, and associations with PA variables were assessed using whole-brain regressions. Childhood neglect was associated with weaker activation in the right posterior cingulate, whereas greater family conflict, economic stress, and maternal PA factors were associated with greater activation in the left medial frontal gyrus, right superior and middle frontal gyri, and left cingulate gyrus. These data suggest that neural networks supporting inhibitory control processes may vary as a function of exposure to different types of PA, particularly between those related to threat and deprivation. Furthermore, increased activation in children with greater PA may serve as a compensatory mechanism, allowing them to maintain similar behavioral task performance.

Examining the relationship between psychosocial adversity and inhibitory control: an fMRI study of children growing up in extreme poverty

Exposure to psychosocial adversity (PA) is associated with poor behavioral, physical, and mental health outcomes in adulthood. As these outcomes are related to alterations in developmental processes, growing evidence suggests that deficits in executive functions-inhibitory control in particular-may, in part, explain this relationship. However, literature examining the development of inhibitory control has been based on children in higher resource environments, and little is known how low resource settings might exacerbate the link between inhibitory control and health outcomes. In this context, we collected fMRI data during a Go/No-Go inhibitory control task and PA variables for 68 children 5 to 7 years of age living in Dhaka, Bangladesh, an area with a high prevalence of PA. The children's mothers completed behavioral questionnaires to assess the child's PA and their own PA. Whole-brain activation underlying inhibitory control was examined using the No-Go versus Go contrast, and associations with PA variables were assessed using whole-brain regressions. Childhood neglect was associated with weaker activation in the right posterior cingulate, whereas greater family conflict, economic stress, and maternal PA factors were associated with greater activation in the left medial frontal gyrus, right superior and middle frontal gyri, and left cingulate gyrus. These data suggest that neural networks supporting inhibitory control processes may vary as a function of exposure to different types of PA, particularly between those related to threat and deprivation. Furthermore, increased activation in children with greater PA may serve as a compensatory mechanism, allowing them to maintain similar behavioral task performance.

Electrophysiological correlates of inhibitory control in children: Relations with prenatal maternal risk factors and child psychopathology

Inhibitory control plays an important role in children's cognitive and socioemotional development, including their psychopathology. It has been established that contextual factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) and parents' psychopathology are associated with children's inhibitory control. However, the relations between the neural correlates of inhibitory control and contextual factors have been rarely examined in longitudinal studies. In the present study, we used both event-related potential (ERP) components and time-frequency measures of inhibitory control to evaluate the neural pathways between contextual factors, including prenatal SES and maternal psychopathology, and children's behavioral and emotional problems in a large sample of children (N = 560; 51.75% females; Mage = 7.13 years; Rangeage = 4-11 years). Results showed that theta power, which was positively predicted by prenatal SES and was negatively related to children's externalizing problems, mediated the longitudinal and negative relation between them. ERP amplitudes and latencies did not mediate the longitudinal association between prenatal risk factors (i.e., prenatal SES and maternal psychopathology) and children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Our findings increase our understanding of the neural pathways linking early risk factors to children's psychopathology.

Effects of Helicopter Parenting, Tiger Parenting and Inhibitory Control on the Development of Children's Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms

Helicopter parenting and tiger parenting may increase the risks of anxiety and depression in children. However, it is unclear how these parenting styles affect the developmental outcomes and trajectories of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and how children's internal inhibitory control (IC) moderates such effects. The present study aimed to examine this issue. A sample of 172 typically developing children (77 girls; Mage = 7.14, SDage = 0.33) and their parents participated in the study. Parents reported children's anxiety and depressive symptoms using the Child Behavior Checklist each year from the first measurement (T1) to the third measurement (T3) and reported their helicopter parenting and tiger parenting at T1. Children completed the Go/No-go task at T1 to measure their IC. Higher T1 helicopter parenting impeded the declines in anxiety and depression over time, and higher T1 tiger parenting predicted more anxiety and depressive symptoms at T3. However, such effects were only observed in children with low IC, and higher IC buffered the adverse impacts of both helicopter parenting and tiger parenting on children's anxiety and depressive symptoms. These findings revealed that helicopter parenting and tiger parenting had negative impacts on the developmental trajectories and outcomes of anxiety and depression in children and suggest that IC plays an important role in alleviating the risks of anxiety and depression among children in adverse environments.

Aggressive behaviors predict greater intraindividual reaction time variability in children: Evidence from cross-lagged panel models

Deficits in attentional control or inhibitory control are distinct features of childhood aggressive behaviors. Lower attentional control or inhibitory control is considered to predict more aggressive behaviors, while few studies have documented the possible predictive effects of aggressive behaviors on attentional control or inhibitory control. The present study examined the bidirectional relations between aggressive behaviors and both inhibitory control and attentional control in 169 Chinese primary school children (75 girls, Mage  = 7.15, SDage  = 0.33), annually for 3 years starting at age 7. The No-go accuracy on a Go/No-go task was used as the index of inhibitory control, and the intraindividual reaction time variability (IIRTV) of correct Go trials indicated attentional control. The aggressive behaviors subscale of the child behavior checklist-Chinese version was used to assess the children's aggressive behaviors. The results demonstrated a significant and stable predictive effect of previous aggressive behaviors on subsequent attentional control, with more aggressive behaviors predicting greater IIRTV at both the between-child and within-child levels. No significant effects of inhibitory control or attentional control on aggressive behaviors or sex-specific patterns were found. The findings suggest the negative impact of childhood aggressive behaviors on attentional control and underscore the importance of early prevention and intervention for childhood aggressive behaviors.

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.