Jelena Obradović

Existing adult-report survey measures provide crucial information about children’s executive function (EF) development across contexts, but lack cultural relevance and ecological validity. To address these limitations, we introduce the Executive Function from Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT), a publicly available, open-source item bank designed for cross-cultural adaptation that includes 32 parallel items for caregivers and teachers across six EF domains: sustained attention, response inhibition, interference suppression, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning/organization. EFFORT additionally includes 10 assessor report items intended for use following a structured, standardized assessment session. This study presents the first validation of the tool within seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Haiti, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States) leveraging caregiver, teacher, and assessor observations of 1738 children (aged 3–11 years). Findings revealed acceptable fit for a six-factor structure for caregiver and teacher reports that were not empirically distinct, but yielded highly reliable composites. We further validated a 12-item short form for caregivers and teachers that demonstrated strong unidimensionality, gender invariance, and age-related increases. We demonstrated significant convergence of a short-form caregiver and teacher composite with the assessor-reported measures, as well as convergence of all three adult reports with direct assessments of children’s EF skills. This new tool holds promise to advance the science of how children develop and apply EFs to accomplish everyday goals across different cultural settings and in understudied populations.

Existing adult-report survey measures provide crucial information about children’s executive function (EF) development across contexts, but lack cultural relevance and ecological validity. To address these limitations, we introduce the Executive Function From Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT), a publicly available, open-source item bank designed for cross-cultural adaptation that includes 32 parallel items for caregivers and teachers across six EF domains: sustained attention, response inhibition, interference suppression, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning/organization. EFFORT additionally includes 10 assessor-report items intended for use following a structured, standardized assessment session. This study presents the first multinational validation of the tool across seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Haiti, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States) leveraging caregiver, teacher, and assessor observations of 1,738 children (aged 3–11 years). Findings revealed acceptable fit for a six-factor structure for caregiver and teacher reports that were not empirically distinct, but yielded highly reliable composites. We further validated a 12-item short form for caregiver and teacher that demonstrated strong unidimensionality, gender invariance, and age-related increases. We demonstrated significant convergence of a short-form caregiver and teachers composite with the assessor-reported measures, as well as convergence of all three adult reports with direct assessments of children’s EF skills. This new tool holds promise to advance the science of how children develop and apply EFs to accomplish everyday goals across different cultural settings and in understudied populations.

Racial disparities in educational outcomes persist in the United States. However, little is known about race-related beliefs among early childhood educators (ECEs). ECEs serve as the first representatives of formal education for children from racially and ethnically minoritized backgrounds, even as they navigate a highly stressful and under-supported profession. This study examined race-related beliefs among a racially and ethnically diverse sample of 146 ECEs working in a large urban school district, and investigated differences in race-related beliefs by ECE age, tenure, education, and race/ethnicity. Participating ECEs identified as Asian (43.4%), White (24.0%), Latine (18.6%), and Black (14.0%). Approximately 40% had earned a graduate degree. Subsequent study aims utilized linear regression models to examine ECE daily stressors and burnout symptoms as predictors of race-related beliefs, controlling for ECE race/ethnicity, age, and education. Results demonstrated that ECEs generally reported equitable race-related beliefs. However, older ECEs, ECEs with less than a graduate degree, and ECEs identifying as Asian were also more likely to espouse inequitable beliefs. Controlling for age, race/ethnicity, and education, greater burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) was related to greater alignment with meritocracy beliefs, more cultural deficit beliefs, and a belief that racism is no longer a problem in America. ECE daily stressors were not significantly related to any race-related beliefs. Findings from the present study highlight areas for intervention to increase equity, including increasing opportunities for higher education for ECEs, and implementing system-wide supports to reduce burnout.

In response to recent state and local reforms, schools have reduced formal exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspensions, expulsions). Our report highlights the largely undocumented informal exclusionary discipline practices that emerge when formal discipline is no longer legally or culturally permissible. We define informal exclusionary discipline practices as within-classroom, within-school, and out-of-school practices beyond formal discipline that limit students' access to classroom learning opportunities in PreK-12 settings. These practices disproportionately affect racially/ethnically and economically marginalized students and students with disabilities, thereby reproducing formal discipline inequalities, but have received scant attention in contemporary policy discussions. We offer policy considerations for federal, state, and district policymakers to document and address these practices.

Following recent discipline reforms, formal suspensions and expulsions have declined nationwide. This qualitative study investigates the kinds, causes, and consequences of informal exclusionary discipline practices that have inadvertently emerged in public preschool and early elementary settings. Drawing on interviews with 63 parents, teachers, administrators, and behavior specialists, we provide evidence of within-classroom, within-school, and out-of-school informal exclusionary discipline practices. We find that these practices occur when mandates to reduce formal discipline are not paired with adequate resources for alternative restorative behavior management approaches. By disproportionately impacting racially/ethnically and economically marginalized students, informal practices reproduce formal school discipline disparities and contribute to further educational inequities. These practices have lasting harms, including disruptions to child learning, parental employment, and child and families’ sense of school belonging. Findings underscore the need to systematically document and address informal exclusionary discipline practices, which remain invisible in administrative records but constitute increasingly common forms of racialized exclusion in contemporary early education.

Measures of children’s working memory (WM) need to reflect their diverse learning methods. This study validated a novel embodied WM task—the Body Span—that relies on observational learning and minimizes the need for academic concepts or digital tools. The Body Span was administered alongside verbal and visuospatial WM tasks to 448 children, ages 5 to 11 years old (M = 7.96, SD = 1.99; 50% female), in rural Bangladesh. Children observed and tapped different culturally appropriate body parts in sequences of increasing length in the Body Span. The novel Body Span showed strong convergence with existing WM measures and showed unique predictive validity across cognitive and behavioral outcomes, underscoring its value as both a complementary and stand-alone assessment.

Previous research on self-regulation development in contexts of adversity has emphasized risk, but recent work suggests this view may be incomplete. Emerging adaptation-based frameworks call for a more balanced perspective that considers how specific experiences may give rise to both developmental challenges and contextually adaptive strengths. In a sample of 1,843 children (mean age = 4.76; 49% female; 37% AAPI, 13% Black, 28% Latine, 10% White; 12% Other) from a large, predominantly low-income preschool program, we applied latent profile analysis to six directly assessed cognitive- and emotion-related self-regulation skills. Five profiles were identified: Global Challenge (8%), Balanced Skills (36%), Global Strength (19%), Emotion Strength / Cognitive Challenge (25%), and Cognitive Strength / Emotion Challenge (12%). Notably, the majority of children fell into profiles marked by strengths in at least one domain, challenging assumptions of uniform impairment in contexts of adversity. These profiles mapped meaningfully onto teacher- and assessor-reported behavior, providing external validation of their classroom relevance. Exploratory analyses using Bayesian inference in a smaller subsample (n = 184) examined how distinct types of adversity—stress, instability, and health-related experiences—predicted profile membership. While no associations met Bayesian thresholds of certainty, stress and health adversity showed preliminary links to profiles characterized by domain-specific trade-offs. These findings illustrate a novel, adaptation-based approach to identifying patterns of strength and challenge, particularly within a racially and economically marginalized sample often described in deficit terms. This work lays a foundation for future research and intervention that recognizes heterogeneity as a meaningful feature of self-regulation development in low-resource contexts.