Poster #60 - The Effect of Family-based Intervention on Young Children’s Executive Function

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

Introduction: Executive function (EF) is the ability to activate working memory, shift attention, and inhibit impulses, enabling individuals to achieve goals, solve problems, and respond to environmental demands (McClelland et al., 2010). These skills are considered the building blocks of academic success as well as short and long-term emotional and behavioral wellbeing (Robson et al., 2020). Several interventions have effectively improved EF skills among young children (Diamond & Ling, 2016; Takacs & Kassai, 2019); however, there is a paucity of family-based EF interventions, particularly for Latinx families. With research highlighting disparities in EF skills between Latinx children and their peers (e.g., Li-Grining, 2022), exploring how Latinx families conceptualize EF and how these skills can be promoted at home in culturally-specific ways may help inform the development of interventions that are culturally-specific as well as elucidate researcher biases.

Methods: A systematic brief literature review was conducted to summarize the evidence from strengths-focused family-based EF interventions for children under the age of six in the United States as part of a larger federally-funded project, which focused on leveraging Latinx family knowledge, assets, and practices associated with EF and engineering activities.

Results: A systematic literature search was conducted using PsycInfo, EBSCOhost, JSTOR, and Google Scholar, returning 825 articles, with 126 articles initially screened for inclusion. Ultimately, nine randomized control trials and two quasi-experimental studies were included in the review with a total sample of 2,496 children (average age=48.60 months, SD=12.80) across twelve states. We found two general approaches to improving EF in family contexts: (a) Family/home enrichment and skill-building and (b) Parenting relationships. Studies in the first category aimed to directly improve children's EF through a set of developmentally appropriate activities. Studies in the second category focused on improving parenting skills and parent-child relations to foster children's EF indirectly. We found an overall small effect size (g = 0.15) for 18 EF measurements across studies. Studies designed to improve both parenting skills and provide explicit EF practice for children showed higher impacts. Although several studies included Latinx families, they did not test for differential intervention effects and only one study focused on integrating Latinx family cultural contexts into the intervention.

Discussion: Findings from the present literature review show that providing developmentally appropriate activities and improving parenting skills can improve children's EF. However, there is limited evidence on culturally sensitive family-based interventions, particularly among Latinx families. Several questions emerged from this study that are being explored in the larger study including: 1) How well do current definitions of EF align with Latinx family values and contexts? 2) How do Latinx families conceptualize EF? And 3) How do activities highlighted in the literature align with Latinx family’s home contexts? Implications will be discussed that focus on emerging qualitative results as well as the need for future research conducted in partnership with Latinx families.

Authors

• Ahmad Ahmadi, Oregon State University - Corvallis
  Presenting Author

• Shauna L Tominey, Oregon State University - Corvallis

• Scott Pattison, TERC, Inc.

• Smirla Ramos Montañez, TERC, Inc.