The current study aims to investigate the longitudinal relationship between early inhibitory control skills, assessed in 50 typical monolingual Italian toddlers aged 28 to 36 months (Time 1) and subsequent emergent literacy, assessed between the ages of 4 and 6 (Time 2). At Time 1 toddlers were individually assessed in their day-care center on expressive vocabulary and two inhibitory measures, tapping response inhibition and interference suppression skills; at Time 2 children were individually re-assessed in their preschool on a battery of emergent literacy tasks including three phonological awareness tasks and an orthographic knowledge task. Multiple hierarchical linear regression analyses allowed to identify a model that accounted for 37% of variance in the phonological awareness score [F(5;40) = 5.63, p = .001] and a model that accounted for 24% of variance in early orthographic knowledge [F(5;41) = 3.57, p = .010]. In both the models interference suppression measure evaluated at Time 1 was a significant predictor of the subsequent emergent literacy skills, even when children’s early expressive vocabulary was included in the analyses.These results suggest that interference suppression is a key process in the acquisition of emergent literacy skills. Finally, given the inclusion of very young children, this study allows us to explore the developmental antecedents of two important precursors of reading and writing abilities.
Early Inhibitory control skills and emergent literacy skills: A longitudinal study
Traverso L.;Gandolfi E.;Zanobini M.;Usai M. C.;Viterbori P.
2021-01-01
Abstract
The current study aims to investigate the longitudinal relationship between early inhibitory control skills, assessed in 50 typical monolingual Italian toddlers aged 28 to 36 months (Time 1) and subsequent emergent literacy, assessed between the ages of 4 and 6 (Time 2). At Time 1 toddlers were individually assessed in their day-care center on expressive vocabulary and two inhibitory measures, tapping response inhibition and interference suppression skills; at Time 2 children were individually re-assessed in their preschool on a battery of emergent literacy tasks including three phonological awareness tasks and an orthographic knowledge task. Multiple hierarchical linear regression analyses allowed to identify a model that accounted for 37% of variance in the phonological awareness score [F(5;40) = 5.63, p = .001] and a model that accounted for 24% of variance in early orthographic knowledge [F(5;41) = 3.57, p = .010]. In both the models interference suppression measure evaluated at Time 1 was a significant predictor of the subsequent emergent literacy skills, even when children’s early expressive vocabulary was included in the analyses.These results suggest that interference suppression is a key process in the acquisition of emergent literacy skills. Finally, given the inclusion of very young children, this study allows us to explore the developmental antecedents of two important precursors of reading and writing abilities.
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