Executive functions and school readiness intervention: Impact, moderation, and mediation in the Head Start REDI program

By K. Bierman, Robert L. Nix, Mark T. Greenberg, Clancy Blair, C. Domitrovich. Development and Psychopathology, 2008

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Abstract Despite their potentially central role in fostering school readiness, executive function (EF) skills have received little explicit attention in the design and evaluation of school readiness interventions for socioeconomically disadvantaged children. The present study examined a set of five EF measures in the context of a randomized-controlled trial of a research-based intervention integrated into Head Start programs (Head Start REDI). Three hundred fifty-six 4-year-old children (17% Hispanic, 25% African American; 54% girls) were followed over the course of the prekindergarten year. Initial EF predicted gains in cognitive and social–emotional skills and moderated the impact of the Head Start REDI intervention on some outcomes. The REDI intervention promoted gains on two EF measures, which partially mediated intervention effects on school readiness. We discuss the importance of further study of the neurobiological bases of school readiness, the implications for intervention design, and the value of incorporating markers of neurobiological processes into school readiness interventions.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/55c4699197ef32c0dc12086595768ea0d152844c

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In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

The Potential for School-Based Interventions That Target Executive Function to Improve Academic Achievement (2015, methodology): “…impacts on two of three measures of executive function assessed, including a composite response inhibition measure (balance beam and pencil tap), and the same assessor report of attention/impulsivity used in the Bierman et al. (2008) study, with effect sizes of 0.37 and 0.43, respectively.”
Strengthening school readiness for Head Start children: Evaluation of a self-regulation intervention (2015, methodology): “The current study adds to findings from past work suggesting that early intervention can be effective in improving children’s self-regulation, especially for those who enter preschool with low levels of regulatory skills (Bierman et al., 2008; Diamond & Lee, 2011).”