Análise das funções executivas infantis: antes e durante a pandemia por COVID-19

• Autor(a) principal: Cordeiro, Andriely dos Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFPB
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/20876
• topic: COVID-19; Função executiva; Neuropsicologia; Executive function; Neuropsychology; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA

Executive functions are considered important cognitive skills for the healthy development of children, the proper functioning of executive functions can help academic success and interpersonal relationships. They are defined as higher-order processes that enable people to keep information in mind and manipulate it, inhibit automatic actions, and be able to act flexibly in the face of obstacles in pursuit of a goal. Researching ways of analyzing children's executive functioning can help childhood and adolescent psychologists to understand the possible difficulties in this functioning, as well as it is relevant to understand how executive functioning can be changed during an extended period of social isolation. In view of the importance of instruments for psychological assessment and understanding of executive functioning, the present research had the purpose of carrying out two studies. Study 1 aimed to elaborate and analyze the psychometric properties of the "Scale of stories for the analysis of children's executive functions: version for parents". Study 2 analyzed the existence of differences in the executive functioning in the moments before and during the social isolation caused by the pandemic by COVID-19, in addition to identifying the possible relationship between the child's age, school year and the difficulties presented in executive functions , and verify the differences in children's performance according to sex or the presence of school difficulties. 338 parents/guardians of children aged between six and 11 years old (M = 8.42; SD = 0.91) participated in the studies, the data collection of the two studies was carried out in digital format and the data were analyzed with aid of IBM SPSS Statistics, version 26. For study 1, the items on the scale were initially elaborated, which were analyzed by judges, then the number of factors on the scale was analyzed using the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) method with principal component analysis, having suggested that it is a unifactorial instrument. Factorial loads >0.40 were considered for the acceptance of the item as adequate, three items were excluded because they had a factor load below the minimum value established. The reliability of the scale was tested by analyzing internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha (α), with the initial configuration (α = 0.78), which indicates an acceptable reliability index. When excluding items with low factor loads, the value increased (α = 0.80), indicating an adequate reliability index. Preliminary data on standardization of the scale were presented. The results, obtained through study 2, revealed that children had greater difficulty in executive functions during social isolation caused by COVID-19, when compared to the moment before isolation (Z = -10.232; p = 0.0001; r = -0.556). It was observed that age (Before: ρ = -0.182; p <0.01. During: ρ = -0.120; p <0.05) and the school year (Before: ρ = - 0.186; p <0.01. During: ρ = -0.120; p <0.05) were correlated with difficulties in executive functions, the older the age and the higher the school level, the lower the difficulty. The difficulties were influenced by gender (Before: U = 10564,500; p = 0.0001; r = -0.224. During: U = 11112,000; p = 0.0001; r = -0.191) and the presence of school difficulties (Before: U = 5794,000; p = 0.0001; r = -0.376. During: U = 6477,000; p = 0.0001; r = - 0.329), so that male children and those with school difficulties manifested greater damage in executive functions. This study contributes with the presentation of a scale for the analysis of executive functions in children, with the differential of including stories with everyday situations. In addition, it cooperates to a better understanding of how children are affected in crisis situations, such as the social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which occurred in 2020.