Although the important role of children's executive function (EF) in their reading development has been well-established, less is known about the extent to which multilingual children's EF components vary and whether the variability in different EF abilities explains multilingual children's English reading achievement. The present study explored…

Many studies examine how bilinguals and monolinguals differ in their executive function abilities at one time-point or cross-sectionally. Fewer examine how these groups of children may differ over time. Using nationally representative data obtained from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K:2011), this…

Spanking and parental verbal aggression are potentially toxic stressors that can negatively affect children's academic achievement by disrupting mental skills like executive function. Yet little empirical evidence has been provided for this mediating pathway. This study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort of…

This paper used a nationally representative sample of children from the United States to examine the extent to which physical activity and sports participation may promote growth in children's executive functions (EFs), attention, and social self-control over time. Using data from the ECLS-K:2011 (N = 18,174), findings indicated that regular…

In contrast to classical phonological span tasks, which require verbal recall, those used in self-reliant, group-administrable working memory measurement contain a visuospatial response format. As a consequence, these tasks involve recoding, executive, and visual search requirements in addition to encoding and storage processes. To examine…

Detecting a pattern within a sequence of ordered units, defined as patterning, is a cognitive ability that is important in learning mathematics and influential in learning to read. The present study was designed to examine relations between first-grade children's executive functions, patterning, and reading abilities, and to examine whether these…

The United States faces high demand for science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) professionals and a scarce supply of individuals who pursue STEM careers, especially minority populations in the U.S with proficiency in a language other than English. The primary goal of this research was to determine the impact of use of Spanish in…

This brief leverages the first ever nationally representative data set with a direct assessment of elementary school-aged children's executive function skills to examine racial and socioeconomic gaps in performance. The analysis reveals large gaps in measures of working memory and cognitive flexibility, the two components of executive function…

Introduction: This study aims at analyzing whether EFs may predict the SP of children from different low socioeconomic strata, having controlled the effects of age and socioeconomic status (SES). Method: The sample included 178 Argentine children of both genders (52% boys), between 6 and 10 years of age, belonging to the upper-low SES (41%),…

The primary aim of this study was determining Grade 1 cognitive predictors of students at risk for writing disabilities in Grades 2 through 4. Applying cognitive measures selected to align with theoretical and empirical models of writing, tasks were administered to Grade 1 students assessing fine-motor, linguistic, and executive functions: 84 at…

The primary aim of this study was determining Grade 1 cognitive predictors of students at risk for writing disabilities in Grades 2 through 4. Applying cognitive measures selected to align with theoretical and empirical models of writing, tasks were administered to Grade 1 students assessing fine-motor, linguistic, and executive functions: 84 at…

This manual provides guidance and documentation for users of the longitudinal kindergarten-first grade (K-1) data file of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011). It mainly provides information specific to the first-grade rounds of data collection. Data for the ECLS-K:2011 are released in both a…

This longitudinal study was conducted to determine (a) the rate of co-occurrence of reading disabilities (RDs) in a writing disability (WD) population of students followed from first grade to fourth grade and (b) the cognitive burden that is assumed by having a WD and a RD (WD + RD). The sample included 137 first-grade students from a single…

On the basis of longitudinal data across 9 years, this study examined the contribution of sustained attention and executive function to the poor cognitive and socioemotional adjustment of school-age children whose mothers had depressive symptoms during the child's infancy. Mothers (N = 1,364) reported depressive symptoms across their child's…

An increasing number of studies has investigated the latent factor structure of executive functions. Some studies found a three-factor structure of inhibition, shifting, and updating, but others could not replicate this finding. We assumed that the task choices and scoring methods might be responsible for these contradictory findings. Therefore,…