Abstract
Children show marked improvements in executive functioning (EF) between 4 and 7years of age. In many societies, this time period coincides with the start of formal school education, in which children are required to follow rules in a structured environment, drawing heavily on EF processes such as inhibitory control. This study aimed to investigate the longitudinal development of two aspects of inhibitory control, namely response inhibition and response monitoring and their neural correlates. Specifically, we examined how their longitudinal development may differ by schooling experience, and their potential significance in predicting academic outcomes. Longitudinal data were collected in two groups of children at their homes. At T1, all children were roughly 4.5 years of age and neither group had attended formal schooling. One year later at T2, one group (P1, n=40) had completed one full year of schooling while the other group (KG, n=40) had stayed in kindergarten. Behavioural and brain activation data (measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy, fNIRS) in response to a Go/No-Go task and measures of academic achievement were collected. We found that P1 children, compared to KG children, showed a greater change over time in activation related to response monitoring in the bilateral frontal cortex. The change in left frontal activation difference showed a small positive association with math performance. Overall, the school environment is important in shaping the development of the brain functions underlying the monitoring of one own's performance.
Highlights
The developmental period of transitioning from kindergarten to formal schooling is characterized by remarkable improvements in cognitive functions
The present study sought to examine to what extent 1 year of formal schooling shapes the development of neural processes underlying response inhibition and response monitoring, as well as establish whether these effects, if significant, were related to academic achievement
In terms of brain activation, no significant differences in response inhibition were found between the two groups of children
Summary
The developmental period of transitioning from kindergarten to formal schooling is characterized by remarkable improvements in cognitive functions. Bierman et al (2008) found that, in a sample of typically developing preschool children, tasks of working memory and inhibitory control predicted emerging literacy skills. This finding is in agreement with Blair and Razza (2007), who examined the role of self-regulation in relation to emerging academic abilities in 3- to 5-year-old children. Inhibitory control may allow children to consider multiple dimensions of a problem, rather than focusing on the most salient or recent aspects
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