Enhancing Chinese preschoolers' executive function via mindfulness training: An fNIRS study

Sha Xie; Chaohui Gong; Jiahao Lu; Hui Li; Dandan Wu; Xinli Chi; Chunqi Chang

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2022.961797

Enhancing Chinese preschoolers' executive function via mindfulness training: An fNIRS study

Front Behav Neurosci. 2022 Aug 25:16:961797. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.961797. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Sha Xie¹, Chaohui Gong², Jiahao Lu², Hui Li^{3

4}, Dandan Wu⁵, Xinli Chi⁶, Chunqi Chang^{2

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Early Childhood Education, Faculty of Education, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
² School of Biomedical Engineering, Health Science Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
³ Shanghai Institute of Early Childhood Education, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Macquarie School of Education, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁵ Department of Early Childhood Education, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
⁶ School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
⁷ Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China.

Abstract

Mindfulness training has been found to enable cognitive and emotional awareness and diminish emotional distraction and cognitive rigidity. However, the existing intervention studies have largely focused on school children, adolescents, and adults, leaving young children unexplored. This study examined the influence of mindfulness training on young children using the one-group pretest-posttest design. Altogether 31 Chinese preschoolers (M _age = 67.03 months, SD = 4.25) enrolled in a 5-week, twice-per-week mindfulness training. Their cognitive shifting, inhibitory control, and working memory were examined using a battery of executive function tasks. And their brain activations in the region of interest during the tasks were measured using fNIRS before and after the intervention. Results showed that their cognitive shifting and working memory tasks performance significantly improved, and their activation in the DLPFC significantly changed. Implications for this study were also included.

Keywords: cognitive shifting; executive function; fNIRS; inhibitory control; mindfulness training; preschooler; working memory.