University of Virginia Health, Department of Neurology, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
University of Virginia, Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL), Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
Dev Sci. 2022 Sep;25(5):e13236. doi: 10.1111/desc.13236. Epub 2022 Jan 27.
Executive functions (EF) are key predictors of long-term success that develop rapidly in early childhood. However, EF's developmental trajectory from preschool to kindergarten is not fully understood due to conceptual ambiguity (e.g., whether it is a single construct or multiple related constructs) and methodological limitations (e.g., previous work has primarily examined linear growth). Whether and how this trajectory differs based on characteristics of children and their families also remains to be characterized. In a primarily low-income, racially and ethnically diverse, typically developing, urban sample, the present study employed confirmatory factor analyses to examine the construct of EF and latent growth curve modeling to examine nonlinear growth across five time points. Results indicated that the development of a single EF construct with partial measurement invariance across time points was best characterized as nonlinear, with disproportionately more growth during the preschool year. There was individual variability in EF trajectories, such that children with higher EF at preschool entry showed relatively steeper growth during preschool compared to low-EF peers. However, children with less EF growth in preschool had steeper growth in kindergarten, attenuating the gains of high-EF preschoolers and resulting in some convergence in EF by the end of kindergarten. Findings have implications for (1) examining EF development in early childhood with more specificity in future studies, (2) informing the timing of EF interventions in early childhood, and (3) identifying children for whom such interventions might be especially beneficial.
执行功能 (EF) 是长期成功的关键预测因素，在幼儿期迅速发展。然而，由于概念上的模糊性（例如，它是单一结构还是多个相关结构）和方法上的限制（例如，以前的工作主要研究了线性增长），EF 从学前到幼儿园的发展轨迹还不完全清楚。基于儿童及其家庭特征的轨迹是否以及如何不同，这也有待描述。在一个主要由低收入、种族和民族多样化、典型发展、城市样本组成的研究中，本研究采用验证性因素分析来检验 EF 的结构，并采用潜在增长曲线模型来检验五个时间点的非线性增长。结果表明，具有时间点间部分测量不变性的单一 EF 结构的发展最好被描述为非线性的，在学前阶段的增长不成比例。EF 轨迹存在个体差异，例如，在学前阶段 EF 较高的儿童与低 EF 同龄人的比较中，学前阶段的增长相对较快。然而，在学前阶段 EF 增长较少的儿童在幼儿园阶段的增长较快，这削弱了高 EF 学前儿童的增长，并导致幼儿园结束时 EF 有所收敛。研究结果对未来研究中更具体地研究幼儿时期的 EF 发展具有（1）的意义，（2）为幼儿时期的 EF 干预提供信息，以及（3）确定哪些儿童可能特别受益于此类干预。
