Abstract
Although research has highlighted the importance of home experience and especially of play in early brain development, the value of this factor for executive function (EF) development has not received the attention it deserves. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the link between parental play beliefs and preschoolers’ play frequency at home on the one hand and their EF skills on the other. Additionally, other types of home activities were also assessed. A total of 102 preschoolers (45 girls; mean age = 62.08 months; SD = 7.66 months; range, 50–74 months) with their parents (mean age = 35.21 years; SD = 6.96 years) representing low to middle socioeconomic status (SES) families in Ethiopia participated in the study. Results revealed that children’s home activities (frequency of breakfast at home, spending mealtime together with family, participation in peer play, participation in pretend play, and participation in arts and crafts) and parental play support were significantly positively correlated with their performance on EF tasks. Hierarchical regression analyses controlling for age and SES showed that parental play support and frequency of breakfast at home were medium-sized predictors (β = 0.36, p < 0.001 and β = 0.31, p = 0.001, respectively) explaining a significant level of variance in inhibitory control, while participation in arts and crafts at home was a significant predictor (β = 0.22, p = 0.03) of children’s performance on a visual–spatial working memory (VSWM) task. In conclusion, parental play support and preschoolers’ home activities are important factors linked with EF development in early childhood.
Highlights
Childhood is an important period of life when marked developmental improvement of executive function (EF) occurs (Carlson, 2005; Fay-Stammbach et al, 2014)
Families were recruited from a variety of preschools in Ethiopia, which ranged from small to large city area preschools representing lower to middle-class areas
Our results showed that the frequency with which children have breakfast at home and, interestingly, parental play support beliefs were significant predictors of preschoolers’ inhibitory control skills, after controlling for age and socioeconomic status (SES)
Summary
Childhood is an important period of life when marked developmental improvement of executive function (EF) occurs (Carlson, 2005; Fay-Stammbach et al, 2014). Inadequate attainment of EF skills in this period of life has been associated with a number of problems such as developmental psychopathology (Pennington and Ozonoff, 1996), physical aggression. Home Experience and Executive Function (Séguin and Zelazo, 2005), and problems related to school readiness and academic success (Blair, 2002; Diamond, 2007a). Home experience (e.g., parent–child interaction and activities, parental scaffolding, and attachment security) is proposed to be among the important determinants influencing early brain development (Carlson, 2009). EF denotes a set of interconnected cognitive skills that guide and support self-regulation of thought, action, and emotion (Anderson, 2002; Séguin and Zelazo, 2005). According to Miyake et al (2000), it encompasses three basic neurocognitive abilities in adulthood: the ability to withhold irrelevant and unnecessary thoughts and behaviors that obstruct accomplishing a given task (inhibitory control; McClelland et al, 2007b); the ability to hold information in mind (working memory; Blakey and Carroll, 2015); and the ability to flexibly adjust one’s thinking and behavior as per the demands of a given situation (cognitive flexibility; Davidson et al, 2006)
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