Associations between inhibition and precursors of literacy and mathematics in kindergarten children

Abstract

AbstractThis study analyzes the relationship between different components of inhibition (interference control, response inhibition) and pre‐academic skills in a sample of 105 5‐ and 6‐year‐old German and Austrian kindergarten children. Interference control is a form of cognitive inhibition that fosters focused attention on task‐relevant information and the exclusion of task‐irrelevant stimuli, while response inhibition refers to the behavioral inhibition of predominant reactions. We hypothesized that interference control would explain more variance in pre‐academic skills than response inhibition because of the importance of focused attention for the acquisition of (pre‐)academic skills. A structural equation model with two latent factors for the two assumed inhibition components did not fit the data, but a model with a single latent inhibition factor fit well. Inhibition substantially predicted pre‐academic skills over and above chronological age. Results indicate that inhibitory processes are domain‐general predictors of early academic achievement, but the factorial structure of inhibition in kindergarten age requires further clarification.