Inhibitory Control Across the Preschool Years: Developmental Changes and Associations with Parenting.

Sanne B Geeraerts,Maja Deković,Joyce J Endendijk,Jorg Huijding,Judi Mesman,Kirby Deater‐Deckard

doi:10.1111/cdev.13426

Sanne B Geeraerts, Maja Deković + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13426

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Abstract

The normative developmental course of inhibitory control between 2.5 and 6.5 years, and associations with maternal and paternal sensitivity and intrusiveness were tested. The sample consisted of 383 children (52.5% boys). During four annual waves, mothers and fathers reported on their children’s inhibitory control using the Children's Behavior Questionnaire. During the first wave, mothers’ and fathers’ sensitivity and intrusiveness were observed and coded with the Emotional Availability Scales. Inhibitory control exhibited partial scalar invariance over time, and increased in a decelerating rate. For both mothers and fathers, higher levels of sensitivity were associated with a higher initial level of children's inhibitory control, whereas higher levels of intrusiveness predicted a slower increase in children's inhibitory control.

Highlights

The normative developmental course of inhibitory control between 2.5 and 6.5 years, and associations with maternal and paternal sensitivity and intrusiveness were tested
We examined whether maternal and paternal sensitivity and intrusiveness were related to the development of inhibitory control for both boys and girls
At Wave 1, a one-factor model showed near sufficient fit to the data (v2(35) = 150.668, p < .001, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .069, comparative fit index (CFI) = .906, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = .885)

Summary

Introduction

The normative developmental course of inhibitory control between 2.5 and 6.5 years, and associations with maternal and paternal sensitivity and intrusiveness were tested. Inhibitory control exhibited partial scalar invariance over time, and increased in a decelerating rate For both mothers and fathers, higher levels of sensitivity were associated with a higher initial level of children’s inhibitory control, whereas higher levels of intrusiveness predicted a slower increase in children’s inhibitory control. Prior studies have tracked this development by looking at mean-level changes across a variety of lab tasks (Dennis, Brotman, Huang, & Gouley, 2007; Klenberg, Korkman, & Lahti-Nuuttila, 2001; Schoemaker, Bunte, Espy, Dekovic, & Matthys, 2014). These studies indicate that inhibitory control develops especially fast during the early preschool years. A meta-analysis on the usefulness of various inhibitory control measures across age, based on cross-sectional data, concluded that the CBQ inhibitory control subscale is useful to measure individual differences in inhibitory control within a 6-year age range (i.e., from age 2 to 8 years), whereas lab tasks were on average only useful for detecting individual differences within a 2.49-year age range (Petersen, Hoyniak, McQuillan, Bates, & Staples, 2016)

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