2-004 - How Universal, Specific and Predictive are Parental Influences on Children’s Executive Functions?

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Recent years have seen rapidly growing interest in: (i) children’s executive function (EF) skills(e.g., inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning); and (ii) the impact of family environment on children’s cognitive development. Integrating these twin research areas, this symposium reports findings from four new studies based in the UK, USA and Canada.

EF development is gradual and susceptible to environmental influences, such that normative individual differences in child EF are associated with multiple aspects of parenting (for a review see Hughes et al, 2014). However, the samples in these studies have been relatively homogeneous in terms of child age (mostly pre-schoolers) and family background (typically middle-class and Caucasian). As a result, the generalizability of existing findings has yet to be established. Moreover, links between parenting and child EF have largely been examined separately from the links with adult EF or with the intergenerational transmission of adversity. Do distinct aspects of parenting show differential salience for children of different ages or contrasting family backgrounds? Does parental EF contribute similarly to variation in distinct aspect of parenting? How independent or specific are different parental predictors of child EF? Are the pathways sex-specific and do they play a role in the onset of conduct problems? Does EF moderate associations between parenting and emotion regulation? These are just some of the questions that will be examined in this symposium.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chair

• Claire Hughes, University of Cambridge

Individual Presentations

• Sex differences in pathways from prenatal anxiety, parenting, and inhibitory control to oppositional defiant disorder symptoms - Presenting Author: Helen Sharp, University of Liverpool; Helen Chadwick, University of Liverpool; Nicky Wright, University of Liverpool; Andrew Pickles, Kings College London; Jonathan Hill, University of Reading

• Intergenerational Effects of Adversity on Neurocognition: Mediation by Parental Socialization - Presenting Author: Mark Wade, University of Toronto; Sheri Madigan, University of Calgary; Andre Plamondon, Département des fondements et pratiques en éducation, Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada; Michelle Rodrigues, University of Toronto; Jennifer Jenkins, University of Toronto

• do parents help or harm children’s executive functions?: Let me count the ways. - Presenting Author: Claire Hughes, University of Cambridge; Rory Thomas Devine, University of Cambridge

• Testing if Executive Functions Moderate Links Between Parenting and Emotion Regulation in a Low-Income African American Sample - Presenting Author: Zewelanji Serpell, Virginia Commonwealth University; Melissa Washington-Nortey, Virginia Commonwealth University; Tennisha Riley, Virginia Commonwealth University; Amanda Aldercotte, University of Cambridge; Hyunji Kim, University of Cambridge; Teresa Parr, Ashley-Parr LLC; Michelle Ellefson, University of Cambridge