The present study investigated the cross-cultural variations in parents' views on the role of play in child development and the primary purpose of preschool education from Ethiopia and Hungary. It also examined the cross-cultural variations in preschoolers' executive functions, the frequency of their engagement in home activities, and the role of these activities in the development of EF skills. Participants included 266 preschoolers with their parents. The independent samples t-test showed that Ethiopian parents view fostering academic skills for preschooler significantly (...) more important than their Hungarian counterparts do. We also found that while Ethiopian parents hold the belief that academic and cognitive development is the major purpose of preschool education, Hungarian prioritize social-emotional development and entertainment. Additionally, preschoolers in Ethiopia were reported to engage in academic and arts and crafts activities after preschool significantly more frequently than their Hungarian counterparts. On the contrary, preschoolers in Hungary were found to engage in fine-motor activities, solitary play, sports and other physical activities significantly more frequently than their Ethiopian counterparts. No significant differences were found in EF skills between preschoolers from Ethiopia and Hungary. Results from hierarchical regression analyses showed that, after accounting for age and SES, preschoolers' frequency of pretend play and their parents' play support beliefs were found to be small to medium-sized predictors of inhibitory control skills in both samples. However, children's frequency of having breakfast at home was another significant predictor in the Ethiopian sample only. The frequency of participation in arts and crafts and other fine-motor activities were found to be important predictors of preschoolers' visual-spatial working memory skills in the Ethiopian and the Hungarian samples, respectively. We also found that, after controlling for SES, parental play support was an important factor associated with preschoolers' shifting skills only in the Hungarian sample. Based on the findings, we made important conclusions. (shrink)

The present study sought to clarify the impact of executive and social functioning on challenging behavior and the downstream influence of challenging behavior on quality of life and functioning in a large transdiagnostic sample. Understanding these relationships is crucial for developing and designing tailored intervention strategies. In a cross-sectional study, parent informants of 2,004 children completed measures of executive and social functioning, challenging behavior, child and family quality of life, and reported on functional impacts of challenging behavior. Using structural (path) (...) modeling, analyses evaluated the associations between executive and social functioning, including emotion regulation and risk avoidance, with overall and specific types of challenging behavior. Structural models also examined the influence of challenging behavior on child and family quality of life, including measures of the immediate and extended environment, and functional impacts on the parent/child as well as interactions with the medical/legal systems. Finally, mediational models explored the direct and indirect effects of executive and social functioning on quality of life and impact measures via challenging behavior. Results indicated that executive functioning accounts for substantial variance (R2 = 0.47) in challenging behavior. In turn, challenging behavior accounts for substantial variance in child and family quality of life (R2 = 0.36) and parent/child impacts (R2 = 0.31). Exploratory mediational models identified direct effects from executive and social functioning measures on quality of life and functional impacts and indirect effects for executive functioning via challenging behavior. These findings support the development of new intervention strategies and suggest the need to measure executive functioning when assessing and tailoring the treatment of challenging behavior in clinical practice. (shrink)