Less-structured time in children's daily lives predicts self-directed executive functioning.

Executive functions (EFs) in childhood predict important life outcomes. Thus, there is great interest in attempts to improve EFs early in life. Many interventions are led by trained adults, including structured training activities in the lab, and less-structured activities implemented in schools. Such programs have yielded gains in children's externally-driven executive functioning, where they are instructed on what goal-directed actions to carry out and when. However, it is less clear how children's experiences relate to their development of self-directed executive functioning, where they must determine on their own what goal-directed actions to carry out and when. We hypothesized that time spent in less-structured activities would give children opportunities to practice self-directed executive functioning, and lead to benefits. To investigate this possibility, we collected information from parents about their 6-7 year-old children's daily, annual, and typical schedules. We categorized children's activities as "structured" or "less-structured" based on categorization schemes from prior studies on child leisure time use. We assessed children's self-directed executive functioning using a well-established verbal fluency task, in which children generate members of a category and can decide on their own when to switch from one subcategory to another. The more time that children spent in less-structured activities, the better their self-directed executive functioning. The opposite was true of structured activities, which predicted poorer self-directed executive functioning. These relationships were robust (holding across increasingly strict classifications of structured and less-structured time) and specific (time use did not predict externally-driven executive functioning). We discuss implications, caveats, and ways in which potential interpretations can be distinguished in future work, to advance an understanding of this fundamental aspect of growing up

What are the kids doing? Exploring young children's activities at home and relations with externally cued executive function and child temperament

Young children spend a lot of time at home, yet there is little empirical research on how they spend that time and how it relates to developmental outcomes. Prior research suggests less-structured time—where children practice making choices and setting goals—may develop self-directed executive function in 6-year-olds. But less-structured time may be related to executive function for other reasons—for example, because it provides opportunities to acquire conceptual knowledge relevant to using executive function on tasks. We thus tested the possibility that less-structured time is also related to younger children's externally cued executive function. In this remote online study, caregivers of 93 3- to 5-year-olds indicated the amount of time their child was typically spending in various activities while at home during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Activities were categorized as structured (primarily lessons with specific goals defined by adults or an app), less-structured (wide range of activities permitting choice and interaction with caregiver), passive (e.g., watching TV or videos), and primarily physical (e.g., bike riding). Children's externally cued executive function was assessed via the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS). Time and variety in less-structured activities were related to successful switching on the DCCS, controlling for age, family income, caregiver education, and verbal knowledge. Caregivers were more involved in less-structured versus structured activities. Caregiver ratings of children's temperament were related to how children's time was spent. These findings suggest several new avenues for studying young children's activities at home and their relations with developmental outcomes. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/3aGmpSnjuC

Teaching Strategies For Implementing Choice-Based Art Curriculum

This thesis is an autoethnography of an elementary art teacher who has transitioned from a traditional, teacher-led curriculum to a choice-based model where more freedom and responsibilities are given to the students. It is an account of the challenges and obstacles faced during the implementation of a choice-based curriculum and offers possible solutions, teaching strategies, and tips utilized to navigate the transition

How Do Children Begin to Engage Executive Functions in Self-directed Contexts? Modeling Environmental, Genetic, and Cognitive Processes Supporting Semantic Verbal Fluency

Young children often struggle to accomplish their intended goals in a self-directed way, without instructions or reminders from adults. Although it is clear that the ability to meet goals without external direction emerges slowly across development, little is known about the cognitive processes that might support these improvements, and whether certain experiences might be more effective in facilitating emerging self-direction than others. Chapters 2 and 3 in this dissertation explore relationships between children&rsquo;s time in adult-structured activities, where they have fewer opportunities to decide what they will do, and their performance on a measure of self-direction in a task where few reminders are given, semantic verbal fluency (VF). Chapter 2 finds that 6- and 7-year-old children who spend more time in less-structured activities show better self-directed switching performance in VF, relative to children who spend more time in adult-structured activities. Structured activities, including adult-led lessons, homework, and chores, showed a trend-level negative association in the opposite direction, such that more time in structured activities predicted worse switching performance. Chapter 3 replicates and extends findings from Chapter 2 by investigating relationships between VF and two measures of environmental structure in a genetically-informative longitudinal twin sample. In independent phenotypic models, twins who lived in more structured homes and participated in more structured activities at ages 3 and 4 showed worse, and marginally worse VF switching performance at age 7, respectively, controlling for earlier VF ability and concurrent levels of environmental structure. At the same time, children who showed better VF performance at age 4 were more likely to participate in structured activities at age 7. These relationships persisted in models controlling for general cognitive ability, vocabulary knowledge, and socioeconomic status. Links between early structure and later VF were mediated by nonshared environmental factors (consistent with causal explanations), whereas links between early VF and later structure were mediated by nonshared and shared environmental factors, reflecting the possible influence of a passive gene-environment correlation. Chapter 4 focuses on the cognitive processes underlying production in semantic VF via the development of a computational model demonstrating how experience-dependent abstract representations may aid children&rsquo;s word production. Chapter 5 concludes with a discussion of limitations, open questions, and future directions.</p

Revisioning playground design for the developing world school campus: a nature playground proposal for La Chuscada, Nicaragua

Master of Landscape ArchitectureLandscape Architecture/Regional and Community PlanningHuston GibsonPlay is essential to the development of children, as it serves as the main platform for a child to begin to explore his or her world and understand their physical and social environment. It is not a frivolous activity, but a method of learning. Despite this recognition, many playground designs are still steered, wrongly so, by unwarranted societal fears of safety. Such playgrounds lack developmental benefits due to their composition of isolated, prefab plastic components on an asphalt field. Despite recognition in the late twentieth century that “childhood itself is in danger of extinction”, many playground are still sterile in nature. The time is now for designers to look critically at playground design trends and intervene to improve the quality of the environments our children are exposed too. The positive development of the next generation, our children, depends on it. In the case of the community of La Chuscada in Chinandega, Nicaragua, economic status presents a major barrier to the creation of beneficial learning environments. This project addresses the hardships of implementing a developmentally beneficial playground, and through the collaboration with the Amigos for Christ philanthropic organization and interior architecture student Aaron Bisch, offers solutions to achieve this goal. Culture-specific influences of play are explored and survey data from the community of La Chuscada reveal strategies for the implementation of a nature playground design that offers developmental benefits for the children of the community