Infant Attention and Age 3 Executive Function.

Executive function (EF) abilities refer to higher order cognitive processes necessary to consciously and deliberately persist in a task and are associated with a variety of important developmental outcomes. Attention is believed to support the development and deployment of EF. Although preschool EF and attentional abilities are concurrently linked, much less is known about the longitudinal association between infant attentional abilities and preschool EF.

A Longitudinal Investigation of Conflict and Delay Inhibitory Control in Toddlers and Preschoolers.

Research Findings: Eighty-one children participated in a longitudinal investigation of inhibitory control (IC) from 2 to 4 years of age. Child IC was measured via maternal report and laboratory measures under conditions of conflict and delay. Performance on delay IC tasks at 3 years was related to performance on these same tasks at 2 and 4 years, but performance on conflict IC tasks was not related over time.

Infancy predictors of preschool and post-kindergarten executive function.

Little is known about factors that promote optimal development of executive function (EF) skills. The focus of this study was associations among early maternal behaviors, infant frontal brain electrical activity, and child EF at age 4 and following kindergarten. Infant frontal electroencephalogram was collected from 56 infants at 10 months of age and maternal positive affect was observed.