Development Of Executive Functions

Question 1

What are the 3 main components of executive functions according to Miyake et al (2000)?

Answer 1

Inhibition
Working memory
Shifting

Question 2

What are some features of EFs?

Answer 2

Flexible
Goal driven
Linked to attention, monitoring and proactive control
Top down processes (in line with beliefs)
Optimising

Question 3

What is task impurity (Miyake et al, 2000)

Answer 3

Certain tasks engage multiple cognitive processes which involve coordinating components of EFs
More repetition in children - fewer trials

Question 4

How is inhibition important?

Answer 4

Resolves conflict and used for proactive control
Substantial increase between ages 2-5yrs (massive between 3-4yrs)
Response conflict

Question 5

What are some tasks to measure inhibition and what have they found?

Answer 5

Stroop task - frontal regions and ACC, as well as LDPFC
Bear dragon task - 3yrs withhold response to dragon. Frontal lobe damage - cannot withhold response as well as children with ADHD

Question 6

What is working memory and why is it important?

Answer 6

Active updating of phonological and visual stores
High demand for interference suppression
Found executive components sufficiently developed in 6yr olds
Reflects masters of processing than content

Question 7

What is shifting?

Answer 7

Changing from one mental state to another- requires inhibition of current task and W

Question 8

What is the research on shifting in children?

Answer 8

Younger (7-11yrs) greater shift cost than older (15yrs) in task switch
Hughes (1998) - preschoolers find out teddys favourite shape after receiving feedback
3-4yr shift between contexts in simple story

Question 9

What are limitations to the Wisconsin card sorting test?

Answer 9

Frontal lobe damage tend to perform poorer - however, variability between patients
Preservation

Question 10

What is the dimensional change card sort (Zelazo, 2006)?

Answer 10

Child adaptation of WCST
Cards sorted based on colour or shape
3yrs make more preservation errors
5yrs shift when instructed
7yrs show greater ability to rule shift
Baron et al (2008) - unclear of inhibition or shifting

Question 11

What is verbal/ phonemic fluency?

Answer 11

Occurs after damage to frontal & temporal lobes
Dysexecutive syndrome have issues with novel idea generation - less spontaneous speech
Classically frontal patients produce fewer words, with L hemisphere patients
Inconsistent construct validity

Question 12

How did Shallice & Burgess (1996) test inhibition of pre-potent responses?

Answer 12

Hayling sentence completion test
2 parts - pre-potent response (typical) & inhibit/ suppression of pre-potent response
Frontal lobe damage found it difficult to inhibit

Question 13

What is the children’s adaptation of Hayling sentence completion?

Answer 13

Day-night task (Gersradt et al, 1994)
Non-verbal variant

Question 14

What are some real-life implications of EFs?

Answer 14

Readiness for school
Job attainment
Marriage
Quality of life
Social problems

Question 15

What are predictors of poor EFs?

Answer 15

EF in childhood positively correlated with academic achievement (Gathercoe et al, 2008)
Socioeconomic status
Premature babies have poor EFs (Voight et al, 2012)
Preschoolers with poor EFs have poor math abilities (Ernst et al, 2022)

Question 16

Give some examples of early childhood interventions?

Answer 16

Aslin 2007 - fine motor control & computerised training programme
Wass et al (2011) - battery of attention & EF tasks to 11 month olds over 2 weeks (4 sessions) - improvements in sustained attention & attentional disengagement improvements
Slater et al (2007) - larger dose of intervention may be better but hard to administer for motivation

Question 17

How did Klinberg (2005) train EFs in children?

Answer 17

Training children with poor EFs perform well in later EF tasks measured in computer games - small transference but high plasticity
Training WM in 4yrs improved WM
Teaching mnemonics improved language & WM

Question 18

How did Klinberg et al (2005) train children with ADHD?

Answer 18

Wm trained for 20 days in 7-12yrs
Show improvement in Stroop task, non-verbal reasoning & other WM tasks
Found reduction of parental ratings of ADHD but no change in teacher ratings

Question 19

What conclusion did Moffit et al (2011) make about children with poor EFs?

Answer 19

More impulsive, poor attention & poor emotional/ behavioural regulation more likely to commit crimes, earn less & have problems maintaining employment in 30 years time

Question 20

What are some examples of mid/ late childhood EF interventions?

Answer 20

CogMed training improves WM but not untrained EFs
Training purely inhibition limited success
Non-computerised games helped
Martial arts & mindfulness show improvements in EF & control

Question 21

How did Fernandez et al (2022) look at martial arts to improve EFs?

Answer 21

Capoeira RCTs using 67 children (8-13)
3 hours of sessions per week/ 4 months
70%+ attendance improved hand eye coordination & EFs

Question 22

How did Li et al (2022) look at martial arts to improve EFs?

Answer 22

China used 8-10 yrs in 12 groups using Shaolin Kung Fu
11 in free play & 12 control
Completed functional near infrafred spectroscopy before & after
1 back & 2 back WM & attentional network tasks. Martial arts group showed improvements in behavioural performance & reduced activation in frontal polar brain area

Question 23

How did Teble-Barna et al (2016) look at training EFs in children with TBIs?

Answer 23

Attentional improvement & management programme
9-15yrs with mild-severe acquired TBI
Significant improvements in sustained attention & goal attainment & parents reported improved EFs

Question 24

What did Linden et al (2016) find in their review of technological aids?

Answer 24

Small-medium improvements in EFs compared to placebo but unclear clinical significance
No secondary outcomes & evidence quality low
4 studies compared

Question 25

What are Diamond & Lee (2011)s recommendations?

Answer 25

Train early - reduce attainment gap
Poorest income, EF ability & WM span benefit most
Narrow transference
EF interventions need constant change & challenge
Integrate with public school curriculum
Exercise, mindfulness & character development help when done together

Question 26

What are social consequences impairing EFs?

Answer 26

Stress
Loneliness
Lack of physical fitness
Impaired PFC function

Question 27

How did Halperin et al (2012) look at play?

Answer 27

29 4-5yrs with unmedicated ADHD
90 mins/ week (5wks) - practice game puppet says
Balance ball on spoon while walking
Parents & kinds practice 30mins/ day, 6 days/wk & aerobic activity
Parents reported reduced impulsivity, inattention & hyperactivity

Question 28

What is the function of play?

Answer 28

Helps neural maturation due to inherent social cues & competition/ motivational component

Question 29

How did Koepp et al (2022) further research play?

Answer 29

3-5yrs comparing indoor & outdoor physical activity
Measure EFs
Correlation between performance on EF measures & number of physical activity hours
Inverted U

Question 30

What did Legere et al (2018) find when looking at cultural differences?

Answer 30

3-5yrs in English speaking & Tswana speaking
Variants of DCCS task & flexible induction word meaning task
English increased rule switching as function of age
Limitation - compare different education

Question 31

How did Rodrigues Rato et al (2017) look at cultural differences?

Answer 31

3-5yr Portuguese & American
Shape stories
No difference in EFs

Question 32

What did Cho et al (2023) find about cultural differences?

Answer 32

Socialisation & culture influence EF development
Strong EFs predict academic achievement
Both culture & socialisation feed into executive control development

Question 33

What did Ren et al (2022) look at?

Answer 33

EFs in preschool to grade 3 china
Heads, shoulders, knees & toes
Early EF abilities predicted word reading abilities

Question 34

What are some hot EFs?

Answer 34

Interpersonal social behaviours & complex emotions
Theory of mind
Recruits affective regions (ventral & medial PFC)

Question 35

What are some cool EFs (abstract)?

Answer 35

Planning
Mechanistic
Problem solving
Verbal reasoning
Goal setting
Associated with general intelligence

Question 36

What did Moriguchi & Phillips (2023) find on hot & cold EFs?

Answer 36

Lateral PFC active on both
Hot studies mainly based on reward motivation
No clearly distinct region for hot or cool

Question 37

What is an alternative theory of EF development?

Answer 37

EFs determined in lab don’t necessarily correspond to outside behaviours
Doebel (2020) - goal directed/ engagement account of EF application - preference, knowledge, value & norms & belief