Research On The Development Of Executive Function Of 3～6-Year-Old Children And Its Differences Between Urban And Rural Areas

In recent years, Executive Function has become a frontier research issue in the research area of children’cognitive development, especially the studies of preschool children. It can help children remember and use new information, focus attention, solve complex problems, successfully complete a lengthy but important task, know how to make plans and make decisions, and make appropriate adjustments in a timely manner if necessary, realize and correct errors, control their impulsive behavior to set goals and monitor the completion process under the guidance of their target. Overall, the method in the domestic research on children’ executive function is usually adopted for several classic tasks to comprehensively investigate it, and the separate studies of the three sub components:working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility are few. As subjects, children are usually grouped in different age brackets to explore the key stage of its development, and researches across age brackets and on the change of children’ executive function during the whole preschool stage are relatively few, especially for the special group of children in rural areas.This study examined 210 urban children aged 3 to 6 with seven kinds of executive function tasks of an executive function behavior test software to find age characteristic and gender differences in the development of the three sub components: working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. Then we chose three tasks:SOP, SSS and FIS to investigate age characteristic and gender differences in the development of 134 rural children aged 3 to 6 and compared them with age-matched 131 children in the city to study the differences between them. Through questionnaire survey, this study used four important family life environment evaluation indexes of the child’s primary caregiver, the mother’s highest degree, the family income per ca pita and the gaming situation of electronic products to conduct a preliminary study on the influencing factors of development differences of executive function of 3 to 6 years old urban and rural children, in order to help primary caregivers and educators more clearly understand the development process and influencing factors of the executive function, and master the necessary knowledge and methods of promoting development of executive function, eventually effectively applying this knowledge in family and school education.The results showed that:1.On the whole, the age main effect of each task of 3 to 6-year-old children in urban and rural areas is significant, but the gender main effect is not significant, age and gender interaction effect is not significant. The executive function in the overall development level is on the rise with the growth of the age.2. No significant sex differences in executive function test show that 3-6-year-old boys and girls in urban and rural areas are equal in the development level of executive function.3. The SOP test accuracy, the SSS test accuracy and the FIS test accuracy of urban children are significantly higher than those of rural children.4. The primary caregivers of urban children are their parents, and the primary caregivers of rural children are their grandparents or maternal grandparents. The main effect of the child’s primary caregivers in the SSS test reaction time, the SOP test accuracy, the SSS test accuracy and the FIS test accuracy is significant. Mother’s highest degree of the urban children is significantly higher than that of the rural children. The main effect of mother’s highest degree in the FIS test accuracy was significant. Family per ca pita income of the urban children is significantly higher than that of the rural children. The main effects of family income per ca pita in the SOP test accuracy, the SSS test accuracy and the FIS test accuracy were significant. The number of urban children who often use electronic products is slightly larger than that of those who never or rarely use electronic products; while the number of rural children who never or rarely use electronic products greatly exceeds that of those who often use electronic products. The main effects of using electronic products in SSS test accuracy and the FIS test accuracy were significant.In general,3-6-year-old urban children performed better in working memory, inhibition control and cognitive flexibility tasks-three executive function sub component than rural children. This difference in performance might be related with category of primary caregivers, mother’s educational background, family finances, use of electronic products, etc. It’s suggested that parents should try their best to personally bring up their children, improve their academic qualifications, enhance their awareness of scientific theories of child rearing, guide children to properly use electronic products, and provide sufficient economic support in order to promote children’ executive function.