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Contributions of modern measurement theory to measuring executive function in early childhood: An empirical demonstration
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This study demonstrates the merits of evaluating a newly developed battery of executive function tasks, designed for use in early childhood, from the perspective of item response theory (IRT). The battery was included in the 48-month assessment of the Family Life Project, a prospective longitudinal study of 1292 children oversampled from low-income and African American families. IRT models were applied to a select set of tasks to demonstrate empirically (a) a principled method for item evaluation, including the utility of item characteristic curves; (b) how to explicitly test whether the measurement properties of executive function tasks are invariant across mutually exclusive subgroups of youths; (c) how the precision of measurement of a given task can vary according to underlying child ability; and (d) the utility of using IRT-based versus percentage correct scores. Results are discussed with respect to the importance of developing psychometrically sound and scalable instruments that facilitate the measurement of interindividual differences in intraindividual change of executive function across the early childhood period.
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“Another working memory paradigm used with preschoolers is self-ordered searching tasks, which requires information, usually visual-spatial, to be maintained and updated in short-term memory.”
From Assessing Executive Function in Preschoolers (2012) · cites this paper as M. T. Willoughby, Wirth, & Blair, 2011
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“Applying this approach, Willoughby et al. (2010) were able to show that three distinct EF tasks (a self-ordered search test of working memory, a ‘Silly Sounds’ non-verbal Stroop test of inhibitory control, and an attention set shifting task) showed similar ICCs over repeated intervals and for…”
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“Here executive function was measured with two tasks; a full battery of tests would have been desirable (Willoughby et al., 2011; Lipsey et al., 2017), but time constraints only allowed two.”
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“As such, considerable time and effort have been invested in research on the nature of individual differences in attention control and their measurement (Lezak, 1982; McCabe et al., 2010; Willoughby et al., 2011; Zelazo et al., 2013).”
Test-retest reliability of a new executive function battery for use in early childhood
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“We have reported the precision of measurement of our newly developed battery of EF tasks elsewhere, with the general conclusion being that the battery does a particularly good job of measuring low levels (less proficient) of EF ability ( Willoughby, Blair, Wirth, Greenberg, and the Family Life Project Investigators 20…”
MethodSelf-citationWilloughby, M. T., Magnus, B. E., Vernon‐Feagans, L., Blair, C., & Family Life Project Investigators (2016) · Journal of Learning Disabilities · doi:10.1177/0022219415619754 · Cited by 129
Self-citationFathers’ sensitive parenting and the development of early executive functioning.
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Self-citationA Hierarchical Integrated Model of Self-Regulation
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Self-citationAn Open Trial of a Metacognitive Executive Function Training for Young Children With ADHD
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Self-citationMeasurement models for studying child executive functioning: Questioning the status quo.
Camerota, M., Willoughby, M. T., & Blair, C. (2020) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/dev0001127 · Cited by 75
“These EAP scores have been shown to have increased precision to differentiate children’s EF ability compared to raw (i.e., percent correct) scores (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
BackgroundSelf-citationDaneri, M. P., Blair, C., Kuhn, L., FLP Key Investigators, Vernon‐Feagans, L., Greenberg, M., Cox, M., Burchinal, P., Willoughby, M. T., Garrett-Peters, P., et al. (2018) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/cdev.13065 · Cited by 81
Self-citationTesting the association between physical activity and executive function skills in early childhood
Willoughby, M. T., Wylie, A. C., & Catellier, D. (2018) · Early Childhood Research Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.03.004 · Cited by 69
Self-citationPerry, R. E., Braren, S. H., Blair, C., & The Family Life Project Key Investigators (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01544 · Cited by 71
“, 2006), a BackwardWord Span task assessing working memory (Davis and Pratt, 1996), and a Dimensional Change Card Sort task (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
MethodSelf-citationCheng, N., Lu, S., Archer, M., & Wang, Z. (2018) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02293 · Cited by 58
“Although we used only one task with proven validity (e.g., Hughes and Ensor, 2005; Willoughby et al., 2011) to assess working memory at 25 and 38 months, the similarity of results at both time points suggest that the effects of maternal parenting on working memory may not be as strong as previously…”
MethodBlair, C., & McKinnon, R. D. (2015) · Learning and Instruction · doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.10.001 · Cited by 68
“A full description of each task as well as psychometric information can be found in a number of publications (Willoughby & Blair, 2011; Willoughby et al., 2011).”
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“more precise way to estimate children’s executive function abilities than percentage correct scores (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
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“Full details regarding the administration rules, psychometric properties, and scoring for each of these tasks have been presented elsewhere (Willoughby et al. 2011).”
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“, 2008) and aggregated measures of EF are stable and robust (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
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“A full description of each task can be found in a number of publications (Willoughby & Blair, 2011; Willoughby et al., 2011).”
Self-citationMeasuring executive function skills in young children in Kenya
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“Third, elsewhere we have emphasized the value of using modern psychometric methods to investigate EF task performance and to test for equivalence in item parameters across subgroups (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
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Self-citationIncome, Family Context, and Self-Regulation in 5-Year-Old Children
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“These tasks are valid and reliable measures of executive function in this age group.(22) The first task, The Silly Sounds Game, is an auditory Stroop task, which assesses a child’s ability to inhibit an automatic response.”
Assessment of preschool‐age executive functions: A systematic review
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“…response inhibition and fine motor control in 3- and 4-year-olds: the time when inhibition is developing most rapidly (e.g., Weibe et al., 2012; Willoughby et al., 2011). association: first that effective inhibition leads to effective fine motor control, and second, that embodied cognition…”
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“…over participants, is a specific case of the more general family of generalized linear mixed models (Cho et al., 2013; De Boeck et al., 2011; De Boeck & Partchev, 2012; De Boeck & Wilson, 2004, 2015; Molenaar, Tuerlincks, & van der Maas, 2015; Partchev & De Boeck, 2012; Willoughby et al., 2011).”
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COMMENTARY ON THE CHANGING NATURE OF EXECUTIVE CONTROL IN PRESCHOOL
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“These aspects cannot be studied by direct observation and researchers must therefore analyze the outputs of these processes and draw inferences (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
BackgroundInhibition: Mental Control Process or Mental Resource?
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“The battery included three inhibitory tasks (a Simon-like spatial conflict task, a Stroop-like silly sounds task, and the farm animal go-no-go task), two working memory tasks (a span-like task and a self-ordered pointing task), and one cognitive flexibility task modeled on the Dimensional Change Card Sort task (20).”
MethodSelf-citationDevelopment of Cognitive Flexibility
Blaye, A. (2022) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781119902737.ch2 · Cited by 11
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“Thus, when identifying students at risk for behavior and mental health problems in schools and developing targeted services (Wass et al., 2012; Willoughby et al., 2011; Willoughby et al., 2016), school-based professionals (e.”
BackgroundA unified framework of parental socialization of executive function development
Hanlin, P., & Zhou, Q. (2024) · Developmental Review · doi:10.1016/j.dr.2024.101149 · Cited by 14
Schirmbeck, K., Runge, R. A., Rao, N., Wang, R., Richards, B., Chan, S. W. Y., & Mähler, C. (2022) · Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science · doi:10.1007/s41809-022-00112-0 · Cited by 8
“However, very few tasks used to assess EF in cross-cultural research have been tested for measurement equivalence across the different cultural contexts; in fact, many measures aiming to assess EF at preschool age have not undergone formal psychometric evaluation (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
BackgroundMeldrum, S. J., Heaton, A. E., Foster, J. K., Prescott, S. L., & Simmer, K. N. (2020) · British Journal Of Nutrition · doi:10.1017/s000711452000135x · Cited by 9
“The utility and merit of these tests have been evaluated, and experts agree that there is a pressing need for psychometrically sound instruments capable of detecting subtle differences in executive functioning in children(43).”
BackgroundStress and the Development of Executive Functions: Experiential Canalization of Brain and Behavior
Blair, C. (2013) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781118732373.ch5 · Cited by 9
Self-citationHouts, C. R., Savord, A., & Wirth, R. J. (2021) · Journal of Pediatric Neuropsychology · doi:10.1007/s40817-021-00117-7 · Cited by 8
“An additional publication is available from this research group that provides an overview of factor analysis and IRT using a specific EF scale development project as a basis for discussion (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
MethodSelf-citationSchulz, D., Richter, T., Schindler, J., Lenhard, W., & Mangold, M. (2022) · Journal of Cognition and Development · doi:10.1080/15248372.2022.2119977 · Cited by 7
“Similar to the manual Silly Sound Stroop task introduced by Willoughby et al. (2011), children are presented with an image of a dog and an image of a cat on a touchscreen in every trial.”
MethodSeeking Racial and Ethnic Parity in Preschool Outcomes
Lillard, A. S., Tong, X., & Bray, P. M. (2023) · Journal of Montessori Research · doi:10.17161/jomr.v9i1.19540 · Cited by 12
“A second rationale for combining the two scores is that single measures of executive function are less reliable than composite measures created from more than one test (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
BackgroundCarr, R. C., Peisner-Feinberg, E. S., Kaplan, R. L., et al. (2021) · Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101317 · Cited by 7
Development and validation of the NIH Baby Toolbox® Executive Function and Memory measures
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Self-citationWu, Q., Jalapa, K., Han, S. J., Tawfiq, D., & Cui, M. (2022) · Development and Psychopathology · doi:10.1017/s0954579422000037 · Cited by 7
“The EAP scores are suitable to process dichotomous or polytomous to indicate a latent trait score for an individual by accounting for the expected value of the posterior probability distribution (Willoughby et al., 2011).”
Executive Functions in the Classroom
Blair, C., & Steinhard, N. (2013) · Cited by 6
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Metadata
- Authors
- Willoughby, M. T., Wirth, R. J., & Blair, C. B.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- New York University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Willoughby, Michael T.
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-03
- Volume
- 108
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 414-435
- ISSN
- 0022-0965 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2953563
- OpenAlex
- W2083472871
- Semantic Scholar
- 262b8e7d22ba4a2661ea0c9d5abb3565bd78a409
- Cited by
- 102
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 7.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (submittedVersion)
- UNC Libraries
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P01 HD 39667, HD39667)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P01 HD39667, P01HD039667, R01HD051502)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- executive function, early childhood, item response theory, measurement invariance, item characteristic curves, measurement precision, psychometric properties, Family Life Project, low-income households, African American children, individual differences
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Black or African American, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Neuropsychological Tests, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Poverty, Prospective Studies, Psychometrics, Task Performance and Analysis, Executive Function, Stroop Test
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