The relationship between Executive Function skills and language development in toddlerhood

The study aimed to investigate the relationship between non-verbal emerging EF skills and language abilities in toddlerhood. Specifically, we explored the concurrent role EFs play in first lexical and grammatical acquisition and whether EF skills longitudinally affect morpho-syntax receptive ability. 62 typically developing children (Mage=28.40 months, S.D.=2.71) participated at Time 1 assessment and a subsample of 28 children (Mage =41.70 months, S.D.=2.05) was assessed one year later (Time 2). At Time 1 children were administered five EF tasks and a standardized Italian language test. Language abilities were also evaluated by a parent-report questionnaire. At Time 2 children were administered an Italian language test to assess the morpho-syntactic receptive skills. A series of hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis (enter method) with language measures as dependent variables, were conducted to explore the contribution of age, mother education and EF components on language measures. At time 2 also vocabulary size at Time 1 was entered as predictor of receptive morphosyntax. The results revealed that for all the language measures the EF scores accounted for an additional amount of variance ranging from 10% to 28%. In particular, Conflict Resolution EF score was a significant predictor of grammatical complexity [t(4,48)=2.38, p=.02], use of pronouns [t(4,48)=2.25, p=.03] and lexical production [t(4,46)=2.54, p=.01] measures at Time 1 as well as later receptive morpho-syntax total score [t(5,20)=-2.38, p=.03]. The current findings contributed to address some critical issue in this research area suggesting that selected EF skills play a role in supporting typical language acquisition from early stages.