Browsing by Subject "Executive functioning"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Delay and probability discounting: a longitudinal study of neural, cognitive, and emotional processes contributing to adolescent development.
    (2010-06) Olson, Elizabeth Ayer
    Adolescence is a time of rapid change in neurobehavioral characteristics, including emotional functioning, cognitive performance, and brain structure and function. The development of decision-making was examined in a group of adolescents (age 9-23) followed longitudinally over a two-year period. Delay and probability discounting tasks were used to assess decision-making. Change in discounting was examined in relation to baseline intelligence, working memory performance, personality factors, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors. In addition, contributions of brain structural features to the development of discounting behavior were analyzed. These included cortical thickness, white matter volume, subcortical volume, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures including fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity. Delay discounting, but not probability discounting, showed significant maturation within individuals. Greater than expected maturation in delay discounting was seen in individuals with lower internalizing and externalizing psychopathology and higher positive emotionality. Brain structural factors predisposing toward greater than expected maturation included lower right frontal cortical thickness, larger cinguate and cuneate white matter volumes, larger hippocampal volumes, thicker parahippocampal gyrus cortical thickness, lower fractional anisotropy in the right temporal-parietal-occipital junction, and lower fractional anisotropy in the right amygdala/ pallidum/ hippocampus. Behavioral factors predisposing toward greater than expected change in probability discounting included female sex (for younger participants) and working memory performance (for males). Brain structural factors predisposing toward greater than expected change included cingulate white matter volume and higher mean diffusivity in the left parieto-occipital area. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for development of decision-making processes during adolescence.
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    Executive function measures in early childhood screening: Concurrent and predictive validity
    (2017-06) Kalstabakken, Amanda
    Recently, evidence has emerged suggesting that executive function (EF) in early childhood is related to multiple aspects of school success, including learning, academic achievement, and social functioning. Despite this evidence, little or no research has focused on the value of EF assessment in routine early childhood assessments. The present study, with the collaboration of a large and diverse urban school district, examined the concurrent and predictive validity of EF assessment in the context of screening. Analyses focused on a sample of 461 children ages 3 to 5 years old who were assessed on three EF tasks in addition to routine screening. EF measures included two computerized NIH Toolbox measures, the Flanker and Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) tasks, with developmental extensions (Dext) that lower the floor of these measures, and Peg Tapping. Routine screening included well-validated developmental readiness and behavioral measures. Results of multivariate analyses indicated that Flanker-Dext and DCCS-Dext worked well to lower the floor of the Toolbox EF measures and that the three EF tasks showed the expected convergent validity. Structural equation models indicated that a latent variable based on the three EF scores was highly related to performance on the developmental screener and moderately and negatively related to other screening measures, including parent-report of child social-emotional problems and screener-observed behavior problems. EF was a significant predictor of academic skills at the beginning of kindergarten and predicted growth across the school year. EF did not provide unique predictive value for predicting academic outcomes over and above other screening measures in use by this district. In contrast, EF both contributed unique predictive value for kindergarten behavior and also was the only measure administered during screening that continued to have unique predictive value for first-grade behavior (over kindergarten behavior). These findings indicate that EF is important for school success, can be assessed by brief and easy-to-learn measures during screening, and may be an important target for intervention in early childhood.
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    Metalinguistic Skills of Children with Varying Language Abilities
    (2018-05-06) Kriegel, Ashlyn N
    This study examined the differences between the performance on metalinguistic tasks between children with typical language development and those with weak language skills. Research Bilingual children will be used as a base for stronger metalinguistic abilities and I will discuss what bilingual children’s metalinguistic abilities taught researchers and how it applies to monolinguals and monolinguals with language impairment. Studies also typically use normal language acquiring monolingual children as a control group to compare to bilinguals and/or monolinguals with language impairment. Results indicate that bilinguals have the strongest metalinguistic abilities and monolinguals with language impairment the lowest. I then will include my own research done in Dr. Lizbeth Finestack’s Child Language Lab, comparing monolingual typically developing and low language skilled children between the ages of 4-8 years. This study will use a variety of examinations, looking at verbal skills, nonverbal skills, low-language skills, and metalinguistic skills. The paper concludes that monolinguals with low language skills have impaired metalinguistic skills which influences the strength of their verbal language abilities.