Poster #5 - Daily 10-min Classroom Activities During 5 Weeks Improve Inhibition of School-aged Children: A RCT Study.

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Inhibitory control (IC) refers to the ability to resist automatisms, temptations, distractions, or interference and to adapt to conflicting situations (Diamond, 2013). IC is a core process of cognitive and socio-emotional development (Borst, Aïte, & Houdé, 2015). In particular, IC abilities in childhood predict later academic and professional success and social adjustment (Moffitt et al., 2011). Given the role of IC in academic success, studies have investigated whether IC could be improved by dedicated school activities (Diamond & Lee, 2007; Zhao et al., 2015). For instance, Tools of the Mind, a school curriculum that included activities promoting executive functions proved efficient to improve executive functions efficiency in preschoolers (Diamond & Lee, 2007). The aim of the present study was to determine whether we could replicate a similar finding by using a randomized control trial (RCT) run by teachers in their classroom. Based on the principle of Tools of the Mind, teachers proposed to the children 10 minutes of specific classroom activities involving either inhibitory control (experimental group) or no inhibitory control (control group), 4 days a week, over a 5-week period. 1049 French-speaking children from 6 to 12 years of age were randomly assigned to one of the two groups: experimental (N = 525; M = 9.6 ± 1.13 years of age, 251 girls) or control (N = 524; M = 9.6 ± 1.12 years of age, 253 girls). Before and after the 5-week intervention, children performed a paper-and-pencil color-word Stroop task (see figure A) in which children identify the ink color of a color word in congruent (RED written in red) and incongruent (RED written in blue) items. Teachers from France and French-speaking countries (N=48) were recruited via a digital pedagogic community of teachers (lea.fr). We used the platform to explain the project, to train teachers on the principle of a RCT study, to upload all the materials needed for the classroom activities, and to analyze the data collected by the teachers.
We found that performance in the Stroop task (as assessed by the interference score, i.e., the difference in the number of correct responses between the congruent and the incongruent items) improved pre and post 5-week classroom intervention to a greater extent in the experimental than in the control group, as revealed by a two way-interaction between the test (pre-test vs post-test) and the group (control vs experimental), F(1,1047) = 10.49, p = .001, ɳP² = .01, see figure B. Specifically, children of the experimental group improved their performance in the Color-Word Stroop task between the pre- and the post-test, t(524) = 4.247, p = .001, dcohen = .185, but not children of the control group, t(523) = 0.145, p = 0.885.
These results provide additional evidence that a 5-week classroom intervention can improve inhibitory control abilities of 6- to 12-year-old children and that teachers can successfully run RCT studies in their classroom.

Group Authors

Citron, P.
Garbarg, J.
Borst, G.
Houdé, O.

Author

• Marie Létang, Université Paris Descartes
  Presenting Author