Suchergebnisse

Early childhood marks a time where word learning is accompanied by rapid growth in the cognitive processes that underlie self-modulated and goal-directed behavior (i.e., executive functions). Although there is empirical evidence to support the association between executive functioning and vocabulary in childhood, inconsistent findings have been reported regarding the extent to which early executive functioning abilities predict later vocabulary outcomes and vice versa. To clarify the nature of the longitudinal relation between these two processes and to examine what, if any, claims can be made about their interdependence, a critical review of the literature was conducted. Also addressed are the conceptual and/or methodological differences that exist across studies conducted on this topic that may be contributing to some of the discrepancies reported in the longitudinal literature. Finally, this review provides practical and empirically informed future directions to serve as a resource for early childhood researchers advancing this area of study.

AbstractAcross the early childhood period of development, young children exhibit considerable growth in their executive functioning (EF) and vocabulary abilities. Understanding the developmental trajectory of these seemingly interrelated processes is important as both early vocabulary and EF have been shown to predict critical academic and socio‐emotional outcomes later in childhood. Although previous research suggests that EF and vocabulary are correlated in early childhood, much of the existing longitudinal research has focused on unidirectional relations among preschool child samples. The current large‐scale study, therefore, sought to examine whether children's vocabulary and EF abilities are bidirectionally related over time across four measurement waves in early childhood (i.e., at ages 2, 3, 4, and 6). At each timepoint, children's vocabulary skills were positively correlated with their concurrent EF abilities. After controlling for child sex and maternal education status, the best‐fitting, cross‐lagged panel model was a unidirectional model whereby children's early vocabulary scores predicted their later EF performance at each timepoint. Although age 2 EF significantly predicted age 3 vocabulary size, this association was no longer significant after accounting for maternal education status. Our results illustrate that vocabulary size plays an important role in predicting children's later EF performance across various timepoints in early childhood, even after controlling for children's initial EF scores. These findings have important implications for intervention research as fostering early vocabulary acquisition may serve as a possible avenue for improving EF outcomes in young children.Research Highlights
Children's vocabulary size is positively correlated with their concurrent executive functioning skill at ages 2, 3, 4, and 6
Young children's early vocabulary scores predict their later EF performance across measurement waves, even after controlling for initial EF skill
There is stability in children's relative vocabulary size and executive functioning performance over time in early childhood