Poster #160 - Individual Differences in Intersensory Processing Predicts Executive Functioning and Preliteracy Skills

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Integrative Statement

Intersensory redundancy, the temporally-synchronous and spatially-collocated occurrence of the same information across different senses (e.g., the sights and sounds of a person speaking), guides attention to unitary audiovisual events (Bahrick 2010; Bahrick & Lickliter, 2012). Intersensory processing develops across early infancy. We have previously reported that intersensory processing predicts preliteracy skills, one of many indicators of school-readiness (Bahrick et al., 2017). Executive functions (EFs; e.g., inhibitory control, working memory) are later-emerging skills, which are foundational for school readiness (Blair & Raver, 2015). Both intersensory processing and EFs require selective attention and attention control. Thus, we hypothesized that individual differences in intersensory processing would predict EFs, which would, in turn, predict preliteracy skills.
Sixty-six rising kindergarten and first-grade students (M=5.92 years, SD=.63; 43.7% male) enrolled in a summer reading intervention program participated. They received the Intersensory Processing Efficiency Protocol (IPEP; Bahrick et al., 2018) to assess intersensory processing, the Head, Toes, Knees, Shoulders task (HTKS; Ponitz et al., 2008) to assess EFs, and a Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) probe (CBM; Fuchs et al., 2001) of Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) to assess preliteracy skills. The IPEP, a fine-grained individual difference measure of intersensory processing skills, was administered on a touch-screen tablet. On each of 48 8-second trials, a 2x3 grid of videos of either objects striking a surface (nonsocial trials) or women speaking (social trials) is presented (Figure 1). On each trial, one of the six videos is synchronous with its natural soundtrack (target event). We calculated intersensory accuracy as the proportion of trials on which the target event was touched (PTTT). On the HTKS task, children are instructed to do the opposite of what the experimenter asks (e.g., “If I say touch your toes, touch your head”). For each of 26 trials, the child received 0-2 points (0=incorrect, 1=self-correct, 2=correct). On the ORF, children are asked to identify as many letter names as possible from a printed sheet of 77 letters in one minute.
On average, intersensory accuracy was 49% (SD=28%). Children scored 45.9% on HTKS (SD=35.4%) and 53.7% on the ORF Letter Names task (SD=33.0%). All measures were significantly positively inter-correlated, rs>.55, ps<.001. Age was also correlated with all three measures, rs>.56, ps<.001. Using SEM, we tested a model (Figure 2) in which EF mediates the relation between intersensory accuracy and preliteracy skills (with age as a covariate). All paths were significant (ps<.05). Even when controlling for age, HTKS significantly mediated the relation between IPEP PTTT and ORF, b=8.27, 95% CI: .102-23.253, and accounted for 21.7% of the direct effect.
The present findings provide some of the first evidence linking individual differences in intersensory processing skills with executive functions in children. These results add to our prior research demonstrating a link between the accuracy of intersensory processing and preliteracy skills (Bahrick, et al., 2017), and reveal that this relation is partially mediated by children’s EF skills. These exciting findings provide preliminary evidence for a developmental cascade from basic intersensory processing skills, to executive functions, and in turn, to preliteracy skills.

Authors

• Myriah E McNew, Florida International University
  Presenting Author

• James Torrence Todd, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine Zambrana, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie Hart, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lorraine E Bahrick, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author