This study investigated whether and to what extent deficits in executive functions
(EF) increase kindergarten children’s risk for repeated academic
difficulties across elementary school. The researchers used growth mixture
modeling to analyze the first- through third-grade achievement growth
trajectories in mathematics, reading, and science of a large (N = 11,010)
sample of children participating in the nationally representative Early
Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2011 (ECLS-K:
2011).
The modeling yielded four growth trajectory classes in
mathematics, reading, and science. The researchers observed an at-risk trajectory
class in each academic domain using a standardized scale.
Children in
the at-risk class initially averaged very low levels of achievement
(i.e., about two standard deviations below the mean) in first grade.
Their trajectories remained very low or declined further by third grade.
Trajectories for other classes were also generally flat but started and
remained at higher levels of standardized achievement. Deficits in EF,
particularly in working memory, increased kindergarten children’s risk
of experiencing repeated mathematics, reading, and science difficulties
across elementary school. These predictive relations replicated across
three academic domains following statistical control for domain-specific
and -general autoregressors as well as socio-demographic
characteristics.
No comments:
Post a Comment