Relationship Between Executive Function And Emotion Regulation Of 3-6 Years Old Preschoolers

In the study, ninety three young children aged 3 to 6 years were recruited, and their executive functioning (EF) and emotion regulation (ER) were investigated with varieties of EF measures and ER measures. Six EF measures, including a reverse-number span task, a sentence recalling span task, an Animal Picture Stroop-like task, a Digital Stroop-like task, a Knock/Tap task, and a Dimension Cards Sorting taskand. Four ER measures, as Teachers'Rating Questionnaire, Children's Emotion Story Telling task, task of coping behaviors in a stressful situation, and Gift Delay task, were used in assessing sections.The results of the research showed that:1) EF is a unitary construction as significant correlation between young children's performance on different EF measures showed.2) There are significant developmental differences between three groups of young children'performances on six EF tasks, and it seemed that younger preschoolers'EF developed rapidly than that of older preschoolers.3) There is no significant gender effect on preschoolers'performances on the EF tasks and Emotion Regulation tasks.4) Young children's emotion-regulation strategies showed significant age difference. Positive instrumental regulation strategies usage increase with age.and older preschoolers depended more on themselves when facing stressful situation instead of turning to adult for help.5) Older children owned more advanced emotion regulation strategies to handle stressful situations,just as that more older preschoolers in the study tended to employ such positive instrumental coping strategies, as oral persuading, cognitive reconstruction, alternative behaviors, and physical activities.6) EF contributed significantly to young children's emotion regulation strategies even after the age and language effect statistically controlled. Besides, the effect of language on the emotion regulation was mediated by EF.