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The Benefits Of Adding A Brief Measure Of Simple Reaction Time To The Assessment Of Executive Function Skills In Early Childhood, Michael T. Willoughby, Clancy B. Blair, Laura J. Kuhn, Brooke E. Magnus

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Early childhood represents a period of rapid cognitive developmental change in executive function (EF) skills along with a variety of related cognitive processes, including processing speed. This leads to interpretational challenges in that children’s performance on EF tasks reflects more than EF skills per se. We tested whether the inclusion of a brief measure of simple reaction time (SRT) during EF assessments could help to partially address this challenge. Data were drawn from a cross-sectional convenience sample of 830 preschool-aged children. Individual differences in SRT were significantly associated with performance on all tasks (R²s = .09–.26); slower …