Predicting behavioral and brain markers of inhibitory control at preschool age from early measures of executive attention
Metadata
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Conejero Barbero, Ángela; Rico Picó, Josué; Moyano Flores, Pablo Sebastián; Hoyo, Ángela; Rueda Cuerva, María Del RosarioEditorial
Frontiers
Materia
Inhibitory control Infancy Early childhood Longitudinal research Executive attention
Date
2023-03-02Referencia bibliográfica
Conejero Á, Rico-Picó J, Moyano S, Hoyo Á and Rueda MR (2023) Predicting behavioral and brain markers of inhibitory control at preschool age from early measures of executive attention. Front. Psychol. 14:983361. [doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.983361]
Sponsorship
Spanish State Research Agency (grants PSI2017-82670-P and PID2020-113996GB-100), awarded to MR; FPU fellowship (AP2010-3525) awarded to the main author ÁC from the Spanish GovernmentAbstract
Background: Inhibitory control (IC) is the ability to prevent prepotent
responses when inappropriate. Longitudinal research on IC development has
mainly focused on early childhood and adolescence, while research on IC
development in the first years of life is still scarce. To address this gap in the
literature, we explored the association between executive attention (EA) and
elementary forms of IC in infancy and toddlerhood, with individual differences
in IC later at 5 years of age.
Method: We conducted a five-wave longitudinal study in which children’s EA
and IC (n = 96) were tested at the age of 9 and 16 months and 2, 3, and 5 years.
Children performed various age-appropriate EA and IC tasks in each wave,
measuring inhibition of attention, endogenous control of attention, inhibition
of the response, and conflict inhibition. At 5 years of age, IC was measured with
a Go/No-go task while recording event-related potentials. After correlation
analyses, structural equation model analyses were performed to predict IC at
5 years of age from EA and early IC measures.
Results: The results revealed that EA at 9 months predicted IC measures at
2 years of age. Likewise, measures of IC at 2 years predicted performance on
the Go/No-go task at behavioral and neural levels. No direct association was
found between EA at 9 months and IC at 5 years of age. We further observed
that some EA and IC measures were not associated across time.
Conclusion: As we expected, EA skills in infancy and toddlerhood were related
to better performance of children on IC tasks, toghether with a more mature
inhibition-related brain functioning. Altogether, the results indicate that IC in
early childhood could be predicted from EA and IC at 9 months and 2 years
of age and suggest that the early emergence of IC relies on the development
of particular EA and basic IC skills. However, some discontinuities in the
longitudinal development of IC are observed in the first 5 years of life. These
findings provide further support for the hierarchical model of IC development