Leiden University Student Repository

Laan, Nina (2022)

Executief functioneren in ontwikkeling: De invloed van het geslacht van het kind, het IQ en executief functioneren van de biologische moeder

Master thesis | Education and Child Studies (MSc)

Background: modern society demands a great deal from the individual and each person's ability to plan and adapt. Cognitive functions, such as intelligence (IQ) and executive functions (EF), are involved in processing and acting on the incoming stimuli. Research question: to what extent does the biological mother's intelligence quotient (IQ), the biological mother's level of executive functioning, and the child's gender predict the executive functioning (divided into inhibition-self-control (IZ), flexibility-emotion control (FE), and metacognition (MC)) of a child at age 2.5 years. Design: the present correlational study uses data originating from a maternal intelligence test (WAIS-IV-NL) and questionnaires (BRIEF-A and BRIEF-P) completed by the mother. The sample consists of 183 mothers and their child. Results: no gender difference at age 2.5 was found in the level of inhibition-self-control, flexibility-emotion control, and metacognition. Maternal IQ and the gender of the child do...Show moreBackground: modern society demands a great deal from the individual and each person's ability to plan and adapt. Cognitive functions, such as intelligence (IQ) and executive functions (EF), are involved in processing and acting on the incoming stimuli. Research question: to what extent does the biological mother's intelligence quotient (IQ), the biological mother's level of executive functioning, and the child's gender predict the executive functioning (divided into inhibition-self-control (IZ), flexibility-emotion control (FE), and metacognition (MC)) of a child at age 2.5 years. Design: the present correlational study uses data originating from a maternal intelligence test (WAIS-IV-NL) and questionnaires (BRIEF-A and BRIEF-P) completed by the mother. The sample consists of 183 mothers and their child. Results: no gender difference at age 2.5 was found in the level of inhibition-self-control, flexibility-emotion control, and metacognition. Maternal IQ and the gender of the child do not predict the child's level of executive functioning in the three domains. In contrast, mother's level of executive functioning emerges as a significant, positive, predictor. The mother's executive functioning also shows the highest explained variance within this study. This means that 8.9% of individual differences in the metacognitive skills of the child can be explained by the level of executive functioning of the biological mother. The same holds for 8.5% in flexibility-emotion control and 4.8% in inhibition-self-control. Conclusion: the results of this study do not confirm that maternal IQ and the gender of the child are predictors for the level of executive functioning of the 2.5-year-old child. This implies that executive functions should receive more attention in preschool development. In addition, the level of executive functioning can be taken into account in diagnostic research as a possible risk factor in the child's development.Show less

executief functioneren

jonge kind

voorschoolse ontwikkeling

Author

Laan, Nina

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Orthopedagogiek

Supervisors

Huijbregts, S. C. J.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

nl