Executive function skills in chilean preschool children

Executive functions are a set of cognitive processes integral to the emerging self-regulation of behavior, and the development of social and cognitive competence in young children. There is limited research on the factor structure of executive function during the preschool years, and it is mostly restricted to English-speaking samples. There is some evidence that children's early executive functions provide scaffolding for emergent academic skills in preschool, but that evidence is mostly restricted to samples from high-income countries. In these two studies, a sample of 1,083 4-year olds from low-income urban neighborhoods of Chile completed a battery of executive-function and emergent mathematics and literacy tasks. Using confirmatory factor analysis and structural modeling, I tested a set of hypotheses about the factor structure of executive functions and the relationship between executive functions at the beginning of preschool and emergent mathematics and literacy skills at the end of preschool. Several findings are noteworthy. First, the confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence of both unity and diversity in preschool executive functions skills. Specifically, when comparing the fits of a uni-dimensional factor model, a three-factor model and a second-order uni-dimensional construct of executive function derived from the first-order factors of inhibitory cognitive control, inhibitory motor control and attention shifting, all three models fit the data equally well. Second, the results from structural modeling demonstrated that levels of children's executive functions at the beginning of preschool, as represented by the second-order factor model, were statistically significant predictors of higher emergent mathematics skills, but not of emergent literacy skills at the end of preschool (models controlled for these outcomes measured at the beginning of preschool). These results have implications for research, practice and policy in Chile and Latin America. Because executive skills have considerable plasticity in early childhood, interventions to improve executive functions may provide a powerful policy mechanism for reducing early achievement gaps and later income gaps between the poorest and the richest in Chile and Latin America. Moreover, my two studies remind us that we need research across all stages of skill development and cultural settings to clarify the mechanisms underlying different domains of school readiness.