The unique relevance of executive functions and self-regulation behaviors for understanding early childhood experiences and preschoolers' outcomes in rural Pakistan

Jelena Obradović; Jenna E Finch; Catie Connolly; Saima Siyal; Aisha K Yousafzai

doi:10.1111/desc.13271

The unique relevance of executive functions and self-regulation behaviors for understanding early childhood experiences and preschoolers' outcomes in rural Pakistan

Dev Sci. 2022 Nov;25(6):e13271. doi: 10.1111/desc.13271. Epub 2022 May 20.

Authors

Jelena Obradović¹, Jenna E Finch², Catie Connolly¹, Saima Siyal^{3

4}, Aisha K Yousafzai⁵

Affiliations

¹ Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
² Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.
³ Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.
⁴ DREAM Community Development and Research Organization, Naushahero Feroze, Pakistan.
⁵ Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

PMID: 35561073
DOI: 10.1111/desc.13271

Abstract

Performance-based measures of children's executive functions (EFs) do not capture children's application of these skills during everyday emotionally-laden and socially-mediated interactions. The current study demonstrates the value of using assessor report of self-regulation behaviors (inhibitory control and positive affect/engagement) in addition to EF tasks when studying early childhood experiences and development in a rural lower-middle-income country setting. In a sample of 1302 disadvantaged 4-year-olds living in rural Pakistan, we found that directly assessed EFs were significantly related to assessor observations of children's inhibitory control and positive affect/engagement during a structured assessment protocol. However, EFs and two types of self-regulation behaviors demonstrated unique associations with children's (1) contextual experiences, as indexed by family socio-economic resources, participation in parenting interventions, and children's physical growth; and (2) age-salient developmental outcomes, as indexed by direct assessment of pre-academic skills and maternal report of prosocial behaviors and behavior problems. First, family wealth uniquely predicted only observed positive affect/engagement, whereas maternal education uniquely predicted only EFs. Second, children's antecedent linear growth was a significant predictor of both EFs and positive affect/engagement, but exposure to an enhanced nutrition intervention during the first 2 years of life and preschoolers' hair cortisol concentration were associated only with observed self-regulation behaviors. Finally, both EFs and observed positive affect/engagement uniquely predicted children's pre-academic skills. In contrast, only assessors' ratings of positive affect/engagement uniquely predicted maternal report of prosocial behaviors and only assessors' ratings of inhibitory control uniquely predicted maternal report of behavioral problems.

Keywords: executive function; low-and-middle-income countries; pre-academic skills; preschoolers; self-regulation; socio-emotional behavior.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Child
Child, Preschool
Executive Function* / physiology
Humans
Pakistan
Parent-Child Relations
Parenting
Self-Control*