Poster #2 - Development Of Cognitive Flexibility And Implications For Externalizing And Internalizing Behavior Problems In Elementary School

• In Event: Poster Session 15

Abstract

Cognitive flexibility is commonly conceptualized as a complex, later developing ability that is made possible by improvements in inhibitory control and working memory domains of executive function (Blakey et al., 2016). It is typically measured with the tasks requiring switching and set shifting, and requires activation of working memory to maintain the rules in mind between the switching conditions and inhibitory control to suppress previously relevant responses (Miyake et al., 2000). This ability to switch between tasks and change perspectives may be particularly important for reducing internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Visu-Petra & Marcus, 2019). A comprehensive literature review indicated that children with delays in cognitive flexibility may have more difficulties adjusting to change and disengaging from behavioral strategies that are no longer effective (Stange et al., 2017). However, there is little evidence about whether delays in cognitive flexibility abilities, assessed with standardized measures, may be associated with behavioral in-flexibility (e.g. repetitive patterns of behavior associated with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology) during the critical period at the beginning of elementary school.

The primary goal of the current study was to identify latent subgroups of children characterized by different trajectories of development in cognitive flexibility throughout kindergarten and first grade, using data from a large nationally representative dataset (ECLS-K: 2011, N= 15,827). The second goal was to examine differences across identified profiles in the prediction of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the second grade. If the delayed developers’ subgroup would be identified, it was expected that this subgroup of children would have significantly more externalizing and internalizing behaviors in the second grade compared to the early normative developers. Cognitive flexibility was assessed with the Dimensional Change Card Sort (Zelazo, 2006). Externalizing and internalizing problems were reported by teachers using the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS; Gresham & Elliott, 1990).

Growth mixture modeling was conducted to address study’s aim (Jung & Wickrama, 2008). Our results revealed two latent classes with different rates of development in cognitive flexibility that we labeled as “early” (n = 14, 368; 91.05%; 50.4% male) and “delayed” developers (n= 1,379; 8.95%; 59.4% male), see Figure 1. Early developers identified in our study were characterized by high initial values of cognitive flexibility and steady high performance during kindergarten and first grade. Delayed developers were characterized by low initial values of cognitive flexibility that improved according to a u-shaped curve over kindergarten and first grade. Further, we performed the equality of means test among these two classes using BCH procedure in Mplus. As shown in Table 1, children who were identified as delayed developers had significantly more externalizing and internalizing behavior problems compared to children identified as early developers at the end of the second grade. Taken together, our findings suggest that that for a small sample of children the ability to successfully switch their attention between the rules of the DCCS is not fully developed during the first two years of formal schooling, representing a significant vulnerability for internalizing and externalizing psychopathology.

Authors

• Irina Patwardhan, Boys Town National Research Hospital
  Presenting Author

• Chanelle Gordon, Boys Town National Research Hospital

• W. Alex Mason, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center