Collaborative Research: Social Competence and Executive Functioning During Early Childhood

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

This project explores how children's social competence with other children contributes to the development of their "executive function" skills, that is, their capacities to make plans and decisions about actions, thoughts, and emotions. These skills affect how children interact with the social and physical contexts they encounter in their peer groups. Ultimately, such skills support children's readiness for formal schooling and underlie mastery of the academic content presented in school. This study uses direct observations, interviews, experimental tasks, and standardized tests to measure both social competence and executive function in children. Adults' ratings for these domains are also employed. The central hypotheses are: 1) social competence and executive functions are significantly related across academic years; 2) social competence is a significant cause of age-related changes in executive functions; 3) individual differences in children's social engagement at age 3 years will predict the degree of positive change in executive functions at age 4 years; and 4) social competence and executive function predict school readiness and academic achievement. Support for these hypotheses in statistical analyses will demonstrate that developmental domains are integrated during early childhood and that social processes leading to social competence promote positive change in children's executive function capacity. This would suggest modifications to current Pre-K curricula, which would take advantage of the impacts that peer interactions have on growth of executive functions and on children's readiness for formal schooling and achievement in school contexts.