Executive Functions in Jordanian Children: What Can the Hearts and Flowers Task Tell Us About Development in a Non-Western Context

• Published in: Journal of cognition and development Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 180 - 200
• Main Authors: Nketia, Jazlyn, Al Sager, Alya, Dajani, Rana, Placido, Diego, Amso, Dima
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Routledge 14.03.2024; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Age differences; Behavior Rating Scales; Check Lists; Child Behavior; Children; Cognitive ability; Executive function; Flowers; Short Term Memory
• ISSN: 1524-8372; 1532-7647
• DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2248698

Understanding executive functions (EFs) development is of high value to global developmental science. Recent calls for a more inclusive and equitable developmental science argue that tasks and questionnaires that are developed using only a subset of the population are not likely to be appropriate for EFs measurement in global contexts unless explicitly tested . Here, we examined a task commonly used to assess EFs in Western populations in a non-Western sample of Jordanian children. We used the Hearts and Flowers (HF) task to examine (a) its value for assessing EFs development in Jordanian children, and (b) whether task performance was associated with socioeconomic variables and parent report of academic achievement, internalizing, and externalizing behaviors measured with the Arabic Child Behavior Checklist. We report data from N = 93 5.5-8.5 year-old Jordanian children. We found the task to be valuable for distinguishing performance among EFs constructs (working memory, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility) in this cohort. However, there were no age differences in EFs performance, nor any EFs-specific relationship to any of the parent-report measures of EFs-related constructs. Instead, EFs were related to paternal education and location of residence (Jordanian governorate). We discuss these findings in the context of the expansion of developmental science into global contexts and call for special consideration of measurement and generalizability biases in investigations with human subjects.