Sanjna Bhatia and Andrew Koepp
Executive function is a set of cognitive processes that are necessary for a control of behavior in order to achieve a goal. Previous studies have indicated that children who were breastfed for a longer period of time demonstrate no significant difference in executive function from those who were breastfed for a shorter period of time (Belfort et al., 2015). Other studies indicate that children born preterm and with extremely low birth weights tend to display lower executive function as a child (Houdt et al., 2019). This study aims to expand existing research by measuring executive function through additional measures such as one-on-one activities with students across a larger and more generalizable sample. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine how birth weight, breastfeeding, and prematurity are associated with a child’s executive function in kindergarten. Executive Function was operationalized as a child’s score on the Dimensional Change Card Sort activity and a Numbers Reversed activity. A sample of kindergartners from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (N=18,174), were tested in the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task and Numbers Reversed activity. Their parents filled out a questionnaire that included questions concerning birth weight, prematurity, and breast feeding. Associations were analyzed using Stata in the form of pair-wise correlations and regressions. In all cases, children who weighed less than 5 pounds at birth, were not breastfed, and were premature scored slightly, but significantly, lower on these tasks compared to children who weighed greater than 5 pounds at birth, were breastfed, and were not premature. These results have potential implications for programs designed to provide cognitive or academic support for prematurely born children throughout and after early childhood.
Comments
Thank you for sharing this interesting project. I appreciated the caveat that other circumstances affect how prominently this effect of prematurity, birth weight and breastfeeding is in children. I wonder if any research is happening about ways of mitigating these effects? – Jeanette Herman
Thank you for sharing this work — human development is not my field, but executive function is a measure that comes up in some areas I have worked in, so I found it interesting to see how it relates to these other measures. – Rob Reichle