Longitudinal associations between maternal, paternal, and child executive function in early childhood in low-income families

• In Event: Exploring associations between parent and child executive function across childhood: Mechanisms, moderators, and main effects

Abstract

Executive function (EF) comprises cognitive processes such as inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory that promote intentional, goal-directed behaviors (Diamond, 2013). Maternal and paternal EF have been theorized to connect to child EF via both biological and social mechanisms, including genetics and parenting (Deater-Deckard, 2014). Empirical evidence shows that maternal EF in infancy and toddlerhood is positively associated with later child EF in toddlerhood and preschool (e.g., Cuevas et al., 2014). Although most research has focused on maternal EF, a small body of literature has found similar support for positive associations between paternal EF in infancy and child EF in toddlerhood (Ribner et al., 2022). The dearth of research with fathers limits our understanding of potential relations between paternal and child EF. Most studies testing associations between parent and child EF have focused on composite measures of parent and/or EF, rather than domains of EF (Cuevas et al, 2014; Jester et al., 2009; Ribner et al., 2022). However, different domains of EF emerge at different points in development (Anderson, 2002) and may or may not be associated with EF in early childhood (Memisevic & Biscevic, 2018). The present study tests associations between maternal and paternal cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control at 9 months and domains of child EF at 38-45 months in a sample of predominantly Latinx, low-income families. We hypothesized that maternal and paternal cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control at 9 months would be uniquely associated with the same domains of child EF at 38-45 months.

Participants (n = 136, 50% girls, 50% boys, 77% of children Latinx) were from the Baby Books 2 (BB2) project, an ongoing randomized control trial of a parenting intervention in the United States to improve child development knowledge among first-time, low-income, cohabiting heterosexual parents (Cabrera & Reich, 2017). At 9 months, mothers and fathers completed the Hearts and Flowers task (Davidson et al., 2006; Diamond et al., 2007). Differences in response time between baseline and test blocks were used to measure inhibitory control and shifting, with bigger differences representing worse EF (Camerota et al., 2019). Response time differences were reversed scored to ease interpretation of associations (i.e., higher scores represent better EF). At 38-45 months, five domains of child EF (i.e., Inhibit, Shift, Emotional Control, Working Memory, and Plan/Organize) were assessed via maternal-report on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function – Preschool (BRIEF-P; Gioia et al., 2003).

Accounting for study site, child sex, maternal and paternal education, and intervention group condition, path analysis (Figure 1) revealed that fathers’ cognitive flexibility was associated with both components of child cognitive flexibility: Shift and Emotional Control. Unexpectedly, paternal inhibitory control was associated with lower child Shift and Plan/Organize scores. There were no other significant associations between domains of parent and child EF, including no associations with maternal EF. Implications for including fathers in developmental research and considering components of broad constructs, like EF, will be discussed.

Authors

• Julia Sarah Feldman, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Oksana Zapletina, University of Massachusetts Amherst

• Natasha J Cabrera, University of Maryland - College Park