Childhood Cognitive Flexibility and Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior Problems: Examination of Prospective Bidirectional Associations.

ABSTRACT: The goal of this study was to examine reciprocal associations between cognitive flexibility and externalizing and internalizing behavior problems longitudinally using data on four occasions from kindergarten through first grade and test for potential gender differences in these associations. The Dimensional Change Card Sort task was used to assess children's cognitive flexibility as a measure of executive function. Participants were 12,462 kindergarteners (49% female) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K: 2011). Results from multivariate latent curve models with structured residuals revealed that children's cognitive flexibility at the beginning of kindergarten was not associated with their growth in either externalizing (r = -0.01, p = .174), or internalizing (r = -0.03, p 

SUBMITTER: Patwardhan I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8176620 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature