Executive Function, Language, and the Toddler’s Discovery of Representational Drawing

Frontiers in Psychology

Sergio Morra¹  Sabrina Panesi² 

[1] DiSFor (Department of Education), Università di Genova, Genoa, Italy;DiSFor (Department of Education), Università di Genova, Genoa, Italy;National Research Council of Italy, Institute for Educational Technology, Genoa, Italy;

关键词: drawing;    language;    working memory;    inhibition;    shifting;    executive function;    toddlers;    cognitive development;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.659569

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Working memory capacity and executive functions play important roles in the early development of drawing and language, but we lack models that specify the relationships among these representational systems and cognitive functions in toddlers. To respond to this need, the present study investigated the relations between drawing and language in very young children, and the role of working memory capacity, inhibition, and shifting in the association between these two representational systems. The participants were 80 children, 25–37 months old. The results revealed that in toddlers (a) all the measures of working memory, inhibition, and shifting loaded on a single factor of general executive functioning; (b) language and drawing are two distinct, but substantially correlated, representational systems; and (c) the development of executive function has a strong impact on language development, which in turn influences the development of drawing.

【 授权许可】

CC BY