A longitudinal intergenerational analysis of executive functions during early childhood. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Despite the importance of executive function (EF) in both clinical and educational contexts, the aetiology of individual differences in early childhood EF remains poorly understood. This study provides the first longitudinal intergenerational analysis of mother-child EF associations during early childhood. A group of children and their mothers (n=62) completed age-appropriate EF tasks. Mother and child EFs were modestly correlated by 24months of age, and this association was stable through 48months. Importantly, maternal-child EF associations were still robust after controlling for verbal ability (potential indicator of verbal/crystallized intelligence) and maternal education (correlate of socio-economic status and verbal intelligence). Potential implications of these findings as well as underlying mechanisms of the maternal-child EF association (gene-environment interplay) are discussed.

published proceedings

  • Br J Dev Psychol

altmetric score

  • 12.68

author list (cited authors)

  • Cuevas, K., Deater-Deckard, K., Kim-Spoon, J., Wang, Z., Morasch, K. C., & Bell, M. A.

citation count

  • 52

complete list of authors

  • Cuevas, Kimberly||Deater-Deckard, Kirby||Kim-Spoon, Jungmeen||Wang, Zhe||Morasch, Katherine C||Bell, Martha Ann

publication date

  • March 2014

publisher