Cook Caylee J, Howard Steven J, Makaula Hleliwe, Merkley Rebecca, Mshudulu Mbulelo, Tshetu Nosibusiso, Scerif Gaia, Draper Catherine E
SAMRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit, School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Early Start and School of Education, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
J Cogn. 2024 Jul 18;7(1):58. doi: 10.5334/joc.377. eCollection 2024.
Executive function (EF) theory and research continues to under-represent the contexts in which the majority of the world's children reside, despite their potential to support, refute, or refine our current understandings. The current study sought to contribute to our understanding of EF in low-income settings in South Africa by investigating longitudinal associations of context-specific risk and protective factors for EF development in three- to five-year-old children who had limited access to ECCE services before the age of five. Child-caregiver dyads (N = 171) participated in two rounds of data collection (approximately seven months apart) during which child EF was assessed using the Early Years Toolbox; context-specific risk and protective factors were assessed through a caregiver questionnaire. Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that after controlling for age, attending ECCE services at time 2 (), and diversity of caregivers at time 1 () were the only factors positively associated with EF at time 2. Other factors commonly associated with EF such as caregiver education, and household income were not significant, while resources in the home were significantly associated with EF () but in the opposite direction to what was expected. These results add to accumulating evidence that predictors of EF established in Minority World contexts may not be consistent across contexts, emphasising the need to broaden the EF evidence base. For instance, future studies could incorporate qualitative and ethnographic methods to better capture the cultural and contextual nuances relating to EF, to better inform our statistical and theoretical models.
执行功能（EF）理论与研究仍然未能充分体现世界上大多数儿童所处的环境，尽管这些环境有可能支持、反驳或完善我们目前的理解。本研究旨在通过调查五岁前接受早期儿童保育与教育（ECCE）服务机会有限的三至五岁儿童中，特定背景下EF发展的风险和保护因素的纵向关联，来增进我们对南非低收入环境中EF的理解。儿童-照料者二元组（N = 171）参与了两轮数据收集（间隔约七个月），在此期间使用《早年工具箱》对儿童的EF进行评估；通过照料者问卷评估特定背景下的风险和保护因素。分层线性回归显示，在控制年龄后，第二次接受ECCE服务（）以及第一次照料者的多样性（）是与第二次EF呈正相关的唯一因素。其他通常与EF相关的因素，如照料者教育程度和家庭收入并不显著，而家庭资源与EF显著相关（），但方向与预期相反。这些结果进一步证明，在少数世界背景下确定的EF预测因素在不同背景下可能不一致，强调有必要拓宽EF的证据基础。例如，未来的研究可以纳入定性和人种学方法，以更好地捕捉与EF相关的文化和背景细微差别，从而更好地为我们的统计和理论模型提供信息。
