The malleability of executive function in early childhood: Effects of schooling and targeted training

Developmental Science
Qiong ZhangSusanne M Jaeggi

Abstract

Executive function (EF), its importance for scholastic achievement and the question of whether or not EF is malleable, have become a topic of intense interest. Education or schooling is often seen as effective approaches to enhance EF due to the specific school-related requirements as compared to kindergarten or pre-school. However, no study to date has investigated whether targeted training focusing on those domains might be comparable with regular schooling in improving EF and fluid intelligence (Gf). The aim of the present study was to replicate and extend the previously demonstrated schooling effects on EF by using a school-cutoff design, and to further investigate whether a theoretically motivated intervention targeting specific EF, i.e., working memory (WM) or inhibitory control (IC), could achieve comparable effects with schooling in both, WM and IC, as well as Gf. 91 6-year-old kindergarteners and first-graders with similar chronological age participated the study. We compared the performance of a first-grade schooling group with that of two kindergarten training groups as well as a business-as-usual kindergarten control group. Participants were assessed in WM, IC and Gf at baseline, immediately after the intervention (...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 15, 2019·Psychological Science in the Public Interest : a Journal of the American Psychological Society·Angela L DuckworthDavid Laibson
Jan 11, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Barbara ArféMarta Lavanga
Mar 12, 2021·Journal of Pediatric Psychology·Tatiana LundMelanie Noel
Jan 18, 2022·Stress : the International Journal on the Biology of Stress·Juyoung KimMonica Tsethlikai

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