Cognitive and emotional processing in tasks with emotional valence: Analysis of age and gender role on child development variations.

Cognitive control consists of high-level cognitive processes regulating thoughts and actions during goal-directed behavior and problem-solving. This study analyzes the performance of 4- to 8-year-old children in Stroop-like and ToL tasks using stimuli with different emotional valence. Significant differences were found in the performance in the congruent block of the Stroop-like task, where 5-year-old children presented a higher performance in the neutral condition. Also, a significant difference was only found in the incongruent block (with higher demand for inhibition), which indicates that girls performed better than boys in both task conditions. Variations in the Stroop-like task performance were found in preschoolers but not in older children, especially in girls than in boys. Specifically, these variations were found between age groups with at least two years of difference. No statistically significant differences were found in performance nor planning time in ToL between the age and gender groups in any of the task conditions. The findings highlight the need to analyze the interaction between cognitive and emotional processing, individual differences, and task demands.

EEG Dynamics of Error Processing and Associated Behavioral Adjustments in Preschool Children.

Preschool children show neural responses and make behavioral adjustments immediately following an error. However, there is a lack of evidence regarding how neural responses to error predict subsequent behavioral adjustments during childhood. The aim of our study was to explore the neural dynamics of error processing and associated behavioral adjustments in preschool children from unsatisfied basic needs (UBN) homes. Using EEG recordings during a go/no-go task, we examined within-subject associations between the error-related negativity (ERN), frontal theta power, post-error slowing, and post-error accuracy. Post-error accuracy increased linearly with post-error slowing, and there was no association between the neural activity of error processing and post-error accuracy. However, during successful error recovery, the frontal theta power, but not the ERN amplitude, was associated positively with post-error slowing. These findings indicated that preschool children from UBN homes adjusted their behavior following an error in an adaptive form and that the error-related theta activity may be associated with the adaptive forms of post-error behavior. Furthermore, our data support the adaptive theory of post-error slowing and point to some degree of separation between the neural mechanisms represented by the ERN and theta.

Impact of an individualized and adaptive cognitive intervention on working memory, planning and fluid reasoning processing in preschoolers from poor homes.

Contemporary evidence shows that different intervention approaches can be effective in improving executive cognitive performance in preschoolers from poor homes. However, several aspects about the role of individual and contextual differences in intervention effects remain to be elucidated. The present study aimed to explore the impact of a computerized executive cognitive intervention with lab-based tasks in preschoolers from Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN) homes. In the context of a randomized controlled design, different activities were administered to children according to their baseline performance in a variety of cognitive tasks tapping inhibitory control, working memory, and planning demands (i.e., high- and low-performance intervention and control groups). Results suggested that the impact of the intervention was shown preferentially by high-performers in Tower of London and K-Bit tasks, who increased their performances in the posttest assessment. This finding supports the importance of considering individual and contextual differences in the design of interventions aimed at changing the cognitive performance of children from poor homes.

Corrigendum: Risks for Child Cognitive Development in Rural Contexts.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02735.].

Individual and socioenvironmental differences in autobiographical emotional appraisal of preschoolers.

Emotions are essential processes for integrating events into autobiographical memory. Different children react differently to the same event. The process through which these different responses are generated from subjective evaluations of an event is called emotional appraisal. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the variations in the emotional appraisal of autobiographical events of 4- and 5-year-old children from homes with different socioenvironmental conditions. We compared preschoolers' emotional appraisal responses with those of their families. The emotional accuracy of the preschoolers was found to differ according to the different socioenvironmental conditions of their homes. Greater appraisal accuracy was observed in the favorable condition, and it was greater for emotional events than for neutral events. Appraisal accuracy also differed with age, with 5-year-olds showing greater appraisal accuracy than 4-year-olds. Therefore, the emotional appraisal of these events may also be affected by age and valence when attributing emotions to personal experiences.

Impact of an Individualized Cognitive Training Intervention in Preschoolers from Poor Homes.

Over the last few decades, different interventions were shown to be effective in changing cognitive performance in preschoolers from poor homes undertaking tasks with executive demands. However, this evidence also showed that not all children included in the intervention groups equally increased their performance levels, which could be related to individual and contextual variability. The present study aimed to explore the impact of a computerized cognitive training intervention with lab-based tasks in preschoolers from Unsatisfied Basic Needs (UBN) homes under the consideration of their baseline performance. In the context of a randomized controlled trial design, different interventions were administered to children according to their baseline performance in a variety of cognitive tasks (i.e., executive attention, inhibitory control, working memory, and planning demands). The results showed different patterns of impact on performance depending on the experimental group, supporting the importance of considering individual and contextual differences in the design of interventions aimed at optimizing executive functions in poverty-impacted sample populations in early stages of development.

Risks for Child Cognitive Development in Rural Contexts.

While poverty all over the world is more typical and extreme in rural contexts, interventions to improve cognition in low socioeconomic status (SES) children are for the most part based on studies conducted in urban populations. This paper investigate how poverty and rural or urban settings affect child cognitive performance. Executive functions and non-verbal intelligence performance, as well as individual and environmental information was obtained from 131 5-year-old children. For the same level of SES, children in rural settings performed consistently worse than children in urban settings. These differences could be accounted mostly by the months of past preschool attendance and the father's completed level of education. These results should inform policies and programs for children living in rural poverty worldwide, and specially in Latin America.

Pobreza y desempeño ejecutivo en alumnos preescolares de la ciudad de Buenos Aires (Republica Argentina) / Poverty and executive performance in preschool pupils from Buenos Aires city (República Argentina)

El estudio de los efectos de la pobreza sobre el desempeño cognitivo durante las primeras fases del desarrollo, ha sido efectuado predominantemente en base a la definición de pobreza según el ingreso y el uso de paradigmas de inteligencia basados en la hipótesis de un factor general de funcionamiento cognitivo. En el presente trabajo se utilizó el concepto de Necesidades Básicas Insatisfechas (NBI) como criterio de pobreza y se aplicó un paradigma cognitivo de funcionamiento ejecutivo proveniente de la Neurociencia. El mismo plantea el análisis de componentes de comportamientos inteligentes orientados hacia objetivos y asociados a la activación de circuitos cerebrales que involucran centralmente a la región prefrontal. Se comparó el desempeño ejecutivo de 247 niños escolarizados de 3 a 5 años de edad, provenientes de hogares pobres (NBI) y no pobres o con Necesidades Básicas Satisfechas (NBS), y de jardines de infantes del Distrito Escolar 4 de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Boca-Barracas) y de distritos escolares de Vicente López y San Isidro del Gran Buenos Aires (Argentina). Se administró una batería de pruebas que evalúan componentes de flexibilidad cognitiva, logro de objetivos y control atencional. Los resultados obtenidos muestran perfiles de desempeño diferentes entre ambos grupos. El perfil de desempeño menos eficiente en términos de las variables estudiadas se observó en el grupo de niños proveniente de hogares pobres. Estos resultados constituyen un aporte significativo de un paradigma neurocientífico para la implementación de estrategias de intervención orientadas a estimular el funcionamiento cognitivo de tipo ejecutivo de niños de edad preescolar