Browsing by Subject "executive function skills"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Autonomy Support in Parents and Young Children Experiencing Homelessness: A Mixed Method Approach
    (2019-12) Distefano, Rebecca
    Both executive function (EF) skills and autonomy have been linked to academic achievement in early childhood. Promoting the development of these skills may be one way to prevent academic difficulties for those most at-risk, such as young children experiencing homelessness. Theoretical and empirical work points to the important role of caregivers as key socializers of EF and autonomy development through autonomy-supportive parenting behaviors. However, some scholars have suggested that autonomy support may be problematic in high-risk contexts, such as homelessness. The current dissertation examined the proposed tension between the potential benefits and drawbacks of autonomy support in families experiencing homelessness. Study 1 was a qualitative interview about autonomy support with 21 parents living in an emergency homeless shelter. Results indicated that many parents endorsed ideas that were consistent with autonomy support, but that some viewed behaviors like offering choice to young children to be inappropriate. Study 2 was a quantitative assessment with 100 parents and their 3- to 6-year-old children to further examine autonomy support in families experiencing homelessness. Unexpectedly, parent verbal IQ emerged as the sole predictor of autonomy-supportive behaviors, and autonomy support was only positively associated with EF skills in children who had not completed kindergarten. Furthermore, the relations between autonomy support and child outcomes did not depend on safety concerns, household chaos, or familial values of autonomy support. Overall, the evidence from the current project addresses gaps in our understanding of autonomy-supportive parenting in high-risk contexts.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Influences of Executive Function and Relational Language on Number Relation Skills
    (2019-01) Chan, Jenny Yun-Chen
    Executive function (EF) skills (i.e., inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility) and relational language (e.g., more, equal, before, between) predict mathematical skills and may be particularly important for number relation skills, a component of early numeracy skills that involves the knowledge of cardinal (e.g., 5 is more than 4) and ordinal (e.g., 5 comes after 4) number relations. Specifically, comparing and making connections between numbers may require EF skills and relational language. I used a pretest – training – posttest paradigm to examine (a) whether EF skills and relational language influence number relation skills, (b) whether number relation skills mediate the reported relations between EF skills and mathematical skills, and between relational language and mathematical skills, (c) whether incorporating EF prompts and relational language instruction in number training has additional effects on number relation skills beyond number training alone, and (d) whether children’s initial EF skills predict pretest to posttest gains in number relation skills beyond their initial number relation skills. I found that (a) EF skills and relational language separately predicted number relation skills, (b) number relation skills fully mediated the associations between EF skills and mathematical skills, and between relational language and mathematical skills, (c) incorporating EF prompts and relational language instruction in number training did not have additional effects on children’s number relation skills, and (d) children’s initial EF skills did not predict improvement in number relation skills beyond their initial number relation skills. The results extend previous findings on the influences of EF skills and relational language on mathematical skills and have implications for future research and educational practices.