Background: The development of executive functions is important for independent, creative, and socially constructive behavior. Despite the genetic predisposition, executive functions are due to the...Show moreBackground: The development of executive functions is important for independent, creative, and socially constructive behavior. Despite the genetic predisposition, executive functions are due to the long-term development also influenced by environmental factors. The specific impact of environmental factors remains, however, unclear. This research focuses on the influence of family factors on the development of executive functions in children. Method: The influence of parents’ educational level, siblings and an educational parent training was investigated in a total of 437 children, between the ages of 8 and 12. During a baseline assessment and a follow-up six months later, executive functions were measured using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). A total of 31 parents where randomly selected to participate in a parent training, where parents learned about the development of executive functions and how they could stimulate this development. Results: Parents’ educational level had a significant small effect on inhibition and working memory and not on cognitive flexibility. There was no significant difference in scores on the executive functions between children with siblings and children without siblings. Finally, the educational parent training showed no effect on the development of executive functions in children. Conclusion: This investigation contributes to a more complete overview of the impact of environmental factors on the development of executive functions. This is important for the development of early interventions to optimize executive functioning in children. Children of higher educated parents showed less problems on inhibition and working memory. In contrast to the expectations, other family factors had little influence on the development of executive functions in this age group. Other environmental factors, such as school, teachers and peers, may play a greater role. Future research should focus on the influence of these other environmental factors in children from eight years old up to young adulthood.Show less
We investigated possible differences between Dutch monolingual and Dutch-English bilingual children ages 11 to 13, in terms of working memory, reading comprehension and the influence of the former...Show moreWe investigated possible differences between Dutch monolingual and Dutch-English bilingual children ages 11 to 13, in terms of working memory, reading comprehension and the influence of the former on the latter. We addressed three possible manifestations of these differences. First, we studied whether bilinguals and monolinguals perform differently on working memory tests. Our study, however, did not find any significant differences between the two groups. Second, we studied differences in performance of monolingual and bilingual children in understanding while reading sentences. We compared accuracy and reaction times on a reading comprehension task including sentences with temporal connectives. No differences between groups were detected at the level of accuracy. In reaction times, however,the analyses revealed significant interactions between groups and position of the temporal connective in the sentence. These interactions occurred for different connectives in monolingual and bilingual children, suggesting that the groups have different approaches to reading comprehension. Third, we explored a possible correlation between working memory and reading comprehension for the whole sample, first merged and then split by groups of monolinguals and bilinguals. The results showed medium to strong negative correlations between working memory tasks and reading comprehension tasks for the whole sample as well as for each of the groups. These correlations, however, are manifested differently in monolingual and bilingual children, a fact that provides another indication of different comprehension mechanisms for each of the groups. Our pilot study indicates, therefore, that bilingualism is associated to differences in reading comprehension mechanisms and in how these mechanisms correlate with working memory capacities. Further elucidation of these differences, by more extensive investigations, could be useful for the design of adapted educational approaches.Show less
The prevalence of people with a disorder in the autism spectrum (ASD) is estimated on 60 to 100 on 10.000 people. A deficit in executive functions is a possible explanation of the behavior shown in...Show moreThe prevalence of people with a disorder in the autism spectrum (ASD) is estimated on 60 to 100 on 10.000 people. A deficit in executive functions is a possible explanation of the behavior shown in ASD. Mothers of children with ASD experience stress in the daily intercourse with their child. The deficit in executive functions might be a predictor for this maternal stress, because the effort-reward proportion is out of balance. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there is a relation between executive functions of children and maternal stress and which of the executive functions contributes the most to maternal stress. This study included 29 mothers with their child (Mage= 4,47, SDage= 1.10). The participants were recruited at schools, libary’s, social assistance organisations and throughsocial networks. The NOSI was used to mearsure maternal stress, the SRS was used to measure signs of autism, the BRIEF-p was used to measure executive functions of the child. Significant correlations were found between all EF and maternal stress: inhibition r=.75 (p<.01), cognitive flexibility r=.72 (p<.01), working memory r=.73 (p<.01), planning and organizing r=.78, (p<.01). The correlations between signs of autism and maternal stress was r=.86 (p<.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that Autism symptoms, β=.62, t(23)=4.59, p<.01, and planning and organization, β=.34, t(23)=2.49, p=.02, contributed to maternal stress and explained 80% of the stress. Signs of autism contributed the most. Results and suggestions for future research are discussed.Show less
Background: Children learn about their surroundings through interest, curiosity and explorative behavior. These forms of intrinsic motivation seem to disappear when children start to attend school....Show moreBackground: Children learn about their surroundings through interest, curiosity and explorative behavior. These forms of intrinsic motivation seem to disappear when children start to attend school. The objectives in schools are generally focused on memorizing knowledge instead of the process of learning. To achieve differentiation in the classroom, studies show that stimulating executive functioning and intrinsic motivation in children could lead to better school achievements. Aim: The aim of the present study was to test if a teacher intervention focused on explorative behavior in children, would lead to higher levels of executive functioning and intrinsic motivation in children. Method: Teachers from four different elementary schools and 211 children (8-12 years) with their parents participated in a baseline and a follow-up assessment six months later. During both assessments two questionnaires were filled out by children on their motivation (Prestatie Motivatie Test voor Kinderen) and by parents on the children’s executive functioning (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function). After the baseline assessment the teacher intervention took place. The teachers learned about the development of the brain and how they could stimulate higher thinking processes, social cognition and explorative behavior in children. Results: A correlation was found between intrinsic motivation and the executive functions cognitive flexibility and working memory. Meaning that overall children with increased motivation also showed fewer problems with executive functioning. However, the teacher intervention showed no significant effects on either intrinsic motivation or executive functioning. Conclusion: This research showed that not only extrinsic motivation, but also intrinsic motivation correlates with the executive functions. Although these correlations were found, the teacher intervention showed no significant main effect. To monitor the effects of the teacher intervention more time and feedback is needed. Through longitudinal research behavioral changes in teachers and students can be monitored over time.Show less
Background. Knowledge about online comprehension processes, which take place during reading, becomes more and more important to understand reading problems of poor comprehenders and reading...Show moreBackground. Knowledge about online comprehension processes, which take place during reading, becomes more and more important to understand reading problems of poor comprehenders and reading strengths of good comprehenders. Inference making is part of the online comprehension processes. Inferences are pieces of information not mentioned in the text and made by the reader. Working memory capacity and general cognitive ability are other components of the online comprehension processes. Aim. The purpose of this study was to determine differences between good en poor comprehenders in primary school in inference making, working memory ability and general cognitive ability. Methods. Twenty-one poor comprehenders and 28 good comprehenders from five primary schools were selected for an experiment where a Think Aloud procedure was used to measure inference making. Working memory capacity was assessed using the Swanson Reading Span Task and general cognitive ability was assessed using the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices test. Percentages from both the amount of different inferences, total score on Swanson Task and total score on Raven SPM were compared by t-tests and Pearson’s correlations. Results. Analyses indicates that poor and good comprehenders draw different percentages of inferences with regard to Text Repetitions, Elaborative inferences and Invalid inferences, but not with regard to Paraphrases and Predictive inferences. Good comprehenders has a higher level on the Swanson Task and a higher level on the Raven SPM than poor comprehenders. Pearson correlation analyses showed that children with high working memory capacity made fewer Text Repetitions and made more Elaborative inferences. Pearson correlation analyses showed that children with high general cognitive ability made fewer Text Repetitions and Invalid inferences and made more Elaborative inferences. Conclusion. This study underlines the importance of knowledge about online comprehension processes and the need for differentiated interventions for poor comprehenders and challenging tasks for good comprehenders.Show less
Research master thesis | Developmental Psychopathology in Education and Child Studies (research) (MSc)
open access
2016-12-16T00:00:00Z
This study investigated an aspect of cognitive functioning or more specifically of executive functioning, that appears to be strongly affected in NF1: working memory. The primary goal of this...Show moreThis study investigated an aspect of cognitive functioning or more specifically of executive functioning, that appears to be strongly affected in NF1: working memory. The primary goal of this functional MRI study was to investigate whether or not the neuronal activity during working memory performance differs between NF1 children and controls. A second aim was to investigate the working memory performance outside the scanner. Participants included children with NF1 (N=21, 7 female), and controls (N=18, 10 female). Ages ranged between 8.2 and 19.1 (Mage= 13.12, SD=3.17). Neuronal activity was measured during the N-back task, and working memory performance outside the scanner was measured with the Memory Search 2D task of the ANT program. With respect to the main aim, the group means comparisons revealed non-significant differences. Though, the participants with NF1 had greater activity in the prefrontal cortex, and less activation in the posterior brain regions compared with controls. Overall, the NF1 children performed poorer on the working memory task outside the scanner. They performed even worse on the second, more demanding condition than the controls. These results may be explained by the dysfunction of the protein neurofibromin and a possible compensatory function of brain regions in individuals with NF1. These insights in brain functioning of individuals with NF1 might contribute to the development of intervention or treatment programs, medication and gene therapy.Show less
