Executive functions and their relationship with age: Insights from a novel neuropsychological Assessment Battery in Children—a pilot study

Abstract

Executive functions (EFs) are a set of cognitive processes that enable individuals to manage and coordinate their thoughts and actions toward achieving specific goals. EFs include planning, organizing, initiating, and monitoring actions, and have been found to improve with age due to the maturation of the brain, especially during childhood. Therefore, our correlational study sought to determine the relationship between the performance in executive functions and age in 79 children (36 girls, 45.6%) throughout development, between the ages of 6 and 12 (mean = 9.25; SD = 2.05), using a battery designed in Chile: BEFE (Batería de Evaluación de las Funciones Ejecutivas: Executive Function Assessment Battery) based on traditional neuropsychological tests to evaluate Working Memory, Inhibitory Control, Cognitive Flexibility, and Planning skills. Our results showed various correlations between the variables age and performance in various behavioral parameters, demonstrating an increase in the number of correct responses (positive correlation) and/or a decrease in errors (negative correlation) with age (6–12) in the subtests that correspond to dimensions of Cognitive Flexibility (Semantic and Phonological Fluency, Card Sorting Game, and Tracing Tasks), Inhibitory Control (ENA-F and Sentence Completion), Working Memory (Audio-verbal WM Forward and Ordering, and Visuospatial WM Forward and Backward), and Planning (La Portada de Antofagasta and FISA Maps). These results are consistent with previous empirical evidence and support the notion of a developmental relationship between EF performance and age. Additionally, this study contributes to understanding EF development in culturally specific contexts, highlighting the importance of contextually relevant assessment tools in evaluating cognitive development.

Keywords:

• Executive functions
• neurodevelopment
• neuropsychological assessment

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Alejandra Saa, Romina Leal, Francheska Cataldo, and Andrea Olivos for their contribution to a previous design of subtests ENA-F-A and ENA-F-B, and Milan Domic for his artistic talent supporting us in creating and designing the stimuli of the test. Additionally, we want to thank Sofía Arias, María Chacón, Diego Palominos, Josefa Burgos, Tomás Cordova, Mónica Plaza, Francisca Beise, and Víctor Kesternich for their valuable contribution and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

This study involved human participants and was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile. ID reference number: 059/2021. Tutors of children participants gave informed consent, and children gave assent to participate in the study before taking part.

Data availability statement

Data, protocol to administer and register responses/errors, manual of scoring, and answer sheets are available upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico VRIDT of the Universidad Católica del Norte under Grant Semilla Project number: 063/2021 and Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo ANID under grant: FONDECYT 11220009.