Comparison of executive functions in Russian and Japanese preschoolers.

This study analyzed differences in level of main executive function (EF) components (such as inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility) among Russian and Japanese preschoolers. The study involved 102 children of 5-6.9 years old: 51 child from Russia and 51 child from Japan. Out of 102 children 48 were boys and 54 girls. It was found that the cognitive flexibility level in Russian children is higher and inhibition level is lower than in Japanese children. The results of the boys' EF comparison showed that boys from Russia have lower cognitive and physical inhibition levels than boys from Japan. Also it was shown that cognitive flexibility in Russian girls is significantly higher and cognitive inhibition is lower than in Japanese girls. The results obtained are discussed from the point of view of possible cultural differences in the two countries studied, which are manifested in the expectations of adults from children.

Emotion Understanding in Bilingual Preschoolers.

The effects of bilingualism on child development have been extensively examined in last decades. Research reveals that simultaneous use of two or more languages affects child's language development, cognitive and social skills. The current study focuses on the so-far understudied theory of emotion understanding in bilingual children. A cohort of 593 bilingual and monolingual 5-6-year-olds took the Russian version of the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) that assesses three components of emotion understanding: emotion understanding of external causes of emotions, reflective causes of emotions; and mental causes of emotions. Our results revealed no group differences between overall emotion understanding and understanding of external and reflective causes of emotions. However, monolingual children had a slightly better understanding of mental causes of emotions compared to bilingual children, when controlling for age, gender, and non-verbal intelligence. These results suggest that children growing up in bilingual environments might require more time and/or language/culture exposure to master the ability to understand mental causes of emotions, taking into account cultural differences, as well as the semantic and lexical differences in emotion labelling and emotion expression in each language.

Learning motivation tendencies among preschoolers: Impact of executive functions and gender differences.

The current study aimed to validate the Russian version of the Child Behaviour Motivation Scale (CBeMO), examine gender differences in motivational tendencies, and explore the impact of executive functions on learning motivation tendencies among children. The sample consisted of 434 typically developing 5-6 years old children. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that according to the evaluation criteria, the model is poorly fitted to the data. However, internal consistency analysis confirmed acceptable levels of reliability and unidimensionality of the CBeMO scales. The identified internal structure of CBeMO indicates an overlap between CBeMO items related to task avoidance and social dependence on the Russian sample. The study revealed differences between girls and boys in all three CBeMO scales. Concerning executive functioning, it was revealed that motor persistence skills and working memory have an impact on the learning motivation tendencies among children, when controlling for group size, age, gender and non-verbal intelligence.

The Relationship Between Russian Kindergarteners' Play and Executive Functions: Validating the Play Observed Behaviors Scale.

Background: Young children's play is theorized to develop executive functions, skills strongly predictive of many later advantages. The current study sought to validate a practicably short play behavior survey for kindergarten teachers (N = 18) and compare the reported behaviors to the executive functions (EFs) of their 443 Russian kindergarteners (M age = 78.6 months; SD = 4.04). Research Findings: The factor model with satisfactory construct validity and internal consistency included three factors: leadership, play preferences and rule conformity. Analyses provide partial support for Vygotsky's theory that play supports EF development, but particular behaviors were related to different EF components. However, kindergarteners exhibiting more leadership, preferences and conformity overall rated higher on most EF components. Practice and Policy: These findings do not support the theory that play skills improve unidirectionally with age and EFs, suggesting particular profiles of types of players and complex changes with age. The play behavior survey may be a practicable way to trace different profiles across the early years.

Effectiveness of Different Teaching Resources for Forming the Concept of Magnitude in Older Preschoolers with Varied Levels of Executive Functions.

Background: Studies have shown the great importance of early mathematical development as a predictor of subsequent success, which poses the question of how to organize preschool mathematical education with a view to the children's age characteristics, including their cognitive development. In other words, mathematical concepts and actions should be formed with the help of teaching resources appropriate to the child's development. Objective: To determine the effectiveness of three teaching resources (examples, models, and symbols) in formation of the concept of magnitude in older preschoolers (ages 6-7) with different levels of executive function. Design: Four training programs (with 15 twenty-minute lessons each) were developed and conducted in a formative experiment for older preschoolers with different levels of development of executive functions. The lessons addressed the concept of magnitude (length, area, volume), using different types of teaching resources: exemplars (in traditional and game variants), models, and symbols. The total sample of 116 subjects (44% boys) was divided into 4 groups for each of the programs, plus a control group in which no sessions were conducted. The groups were equalized according to the initial level of development of concepts of magnitude and the level of development of executive functions. Results: There was a statistically significant increase in the quality of mastery of the concept of magnitude in three experimental groups ("symbolic," "traditional," and "traditional with imaginary characters") compared with the control group. The formative effect of the "model-building" program showed no significant differences from the effect of the child's natural development (the control group). We also showed that children with a low level of regulation learned mathematical concepts more effectively with the "symbolic" program; children with a medium level of regulation with the "symbolic" and any variant of the "traditional" program; and children with a high level of regulation with the "symbolic" and "model-building" programs. Conclusion: The findings underline the importance of both the type of teaching resources used and the level of development of voluntary regulation, when teaching mathematics to preschoolers.

Do Children Need Adult Support During Sociodramatic Play to Develop Executive Functions? Experimental Evidence.

The cultural-historical approach provides the deep theoretical grounds for the analysis of children's play. Vygotsky suggested three critical features of play: switching to an imaginary situation, taking on a play role, and acting according to a set of rules defined by the role. Collaboration, finding ideas and materials for creating an imaginary situation, defining play roles, and planning the plot are complex tasks for children. However, the question is, do children need educator's support during the play to develop their executive functions, and to what extent? This experimental study was aimed at answering this inquiry. The four modes of sociodramatic play were created which differed in the adult intervention, from non-involvement in the play to its entire organization. The play could be child-led (with adult help), adult-led, or free (without any adult intervention); and there was also a control group where the children heard the same stimulus stories as the other groups but then followed them up with a drawing activity instead of a play activity. The study revealed that, firstly, the ways of educator's involvement in the play differed in their potential in respect to the development of executive functions, and, secondly, this influence was not equal for different components of executive functions. Free play in the experiment was not a beneficial condition for the development of any of the studied components of executive functions, compared to the conditions involving the participation of an adult in the play. Furthermore, the type of adult intervention stimulated the development of various executive functions. The entire organization of the play by the adult had a positive impact of their general development. In contrast, the adult's assistance in the organization of the children's play had a positive effect on the development of inhibitory control. The study results can be helpful when considering educational practices within a cultural-historical approach to engaging the potential of play in children's learning and development around the world.

Associations Between Executive Functions and Physical Fitness in Preschool Children.

Considering the current agreement on the significance of executive functions, there is growing interest in determining factors that contribute to the development of these skills, especially during the preschool period. Although multiple studies have been focusing on links between physical activity, physical fitness and executive functions, this topic was more investigated in schoolchildren and adults than in preschoolers. The aim of the current study was to identify different levels of physical fitness among pre-schoolers, followed by an analysis of differences in their executive functions. Participants were 261 5-6-years old children. Inhibitory control and working memory were positively linked with physical fitness. Cognitive flexibility was not associated with physical fitness. The research findings are considered from neuropsychological grounds, Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and the cultural-historical approach.

Comparative Analysis of Psychology Responding to COVID-19 Pandemic in Brics Nations.

The BRICS Forum, an independent international organization encouraging commercial, political, and cultural cooperation between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, was formed in 2011, and these countries have a significant influence on their regional affairs. These nations were hit by COVID-19 at different times, and all adopted home quarantine to reduce the spread of the virus. We present a comparative analysis of actions of psychology and potential outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic in BRICS nations regarding five aspects: psychology in health policies, social roles of psychology, socioeconomic context, actions for the general population, and health professionals during stage 1 of the pandemic, and possible actions in stage 2. Various types of actions were taken by psychologists in BRICS, with different levels of coordinated cooperation with respective governmental and non-governmental organizations, multiple and parallel efforts from different scientific societies, and professional regulatory agencies. Scientific societies have had an important role in coordinating some of these efforts, especially because they congregate the psychologists from different parts of these countries, improving communication and access to key information. The aim of these actions varies from improving situational skills and competences to increase the accessibility of psychological services and provide psychoeducation and telepsychology. We will consider the social importance of these actions within these countries as a global opportunity for psychology to stage in a complex context involving human health. The way psychology in BRICS will face this challenging situation is likely to produce important regional influence, stimulate scientific contribution, and increase the accessibility of psychology.

Executive Functions and Quality of Classroom Interactions in Kindergarten Among 5-6-Year-Old Children.

According to international longitudinal studies, the quality of preschool education is of great importance for children's further development. The modern research's greatest interest in the field of studying the quality of preschool education is precisely the assessment of the relationship between the teacher and children as well as the teaching quality in kindergarten groups. In this regard, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) seems to be the one of the most relevant for the educational environment quality evaluation. The CLASS methodology (which includes emotional support, classroom organization, and instrumental support) is based on the cultural-historical approach, which shows the interaction between students and adults as the main mechanism for child's development. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between different aspects of the classroom organization quality in kindergarten groups and executive functions components (such as cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory) in 5-6-year-old children. The quality of classroom interaction was measured by the CLASS. The study used the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) method to assess cognitive flexibility and the NEPSY-II subtests "Inhibition" to assess inhibitory control and "Memory for Designs" and "Sentences Repetition" to assess visuo-spatial and verbal working memory, respectively. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Psychology at Lomonosov Moscow State University. The study involved 26 kindergarten groups in Moscow. While conducting the research, extreme groups were identified (5 with low quality and 10 with high-quality levels of classroom interaction). Then, three kindergarten groups with low level (65 children) and three groups with high level (68 children) of interaction within classroom were selected and compared. The results revealed that children from groups with low level of classroom interaction have higher results in cognitive flexibility tasks when compared with children from groups with high level of interaction. Also, children from groups with high-quality classroom interaction demonstrated higher results in visuo-spatial working memory tasks and inhibitory control tasks as contrasted with children from low-quality groups. These findings attest to the importance of classroom interaction quality for the executive functions development in the preschool age.

The Relationship between Executive Functions and Language Production in 5-6-Year-Old Children: Insights from Working Memory and Storytelling.

This study examined the relationship between working memory capacity and narrative abilities in 5-6-year-old children. 269 children were assessed on their visual and verbal working memory and performed in a story retelling and a story creation (based on a single picture and on a series of pictures) tasks. The stories were evaluated on their macrostructure and microstructure. The results revealed a significant relationship between both components (verbal and visual) of working memory and the global indicators of a story's macrostructure-such as semantic completeness, semantic adequacy, programming and narrative structure-and with the indicators of a story's microstructure, such as grammatical accuracy and number of syntagmas. Yet, this relationship was systematically stronger for verbal working memory, as compared to visual working memory, suggesting that a well-developed verbal working memory leads to lexically and grammatically more accurate language production in preschool children.

A cross-cultural investigation of inhibitory control, generative fluency, and anxiety symptoms in Romanian and Russian preschoolers.

The current study focused on the early development of inhibitory control in 5- to 7-year-old children attending kindergarten in two Eastern-European countries, Romania and Russia. These two countries share many aspects of child-rearing and educational practices, previously documented to influence the development of inhibitory control. Using the Lurian-based developmental approach offered by the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment battery, the study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology by exploring (a) early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural) in these two cultures, as well as (b) the predictive value of external factors (culture and maternal education) and individual differences (age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety) on inhibitory control and fluency outcomes in children from both countries. First, findings in both culture samples suggest that even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be considered a unitary entity. Second, differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores. However, children's attention control performance varied as a function of culture, and the direction of these cultural effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. Findings also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers' inhibitory control during this period, influencing measures of response suppression and particularly attention control. Finally, the results further stress the importance of individual differences effects in trait anxiety on attention control efficiency across cultures.