Tarefa escolar: suporte parental e o desempenho nas funções executivas de estudantes com idade entre 7 e 9 anos

Abstract

Executive functions (EFs) are a set of mental abilities that allow the individual to regulate behavior and thinking in order to achieve goals. In the relationship between parents and children, supportive parenting practices have a positively impact the development of EFs, which can be stimulated in different situations and activities. Among the activities common to children, homework, when mediated by parental support, may be related to children's executive functioning. The objective of this research was to verify the association between the support offered by parents in the homework and the performance in the core EFs (inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility) of their son or daughter. And additionally, understand the strategies that parents use when supporting their children in carrying out homework. This is an exploratory study with a quantitative approach. Participants were 62 dyads of parents and their child, aged between 7 and 9 years, students in the 2nd and 3rd year of elementary school in two private schools. Parents answered the Parental Support Questionnaire (QSP), developed for the study, covering six dimensions: inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, organization and autonomy. While the children's EFs were evaluated by three instruments: Free Verbal Fluency Task, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Digits Subtest, Five Digits Test and Neupsilin-Inf - Pseudowords Span Subtest. The results of Pearson's correlation analysis between parental support and EFs indicated a significant and positive correlation, although of low magnitude, between parental support that recruited the child's organization ability and EF cognitive flexibility and negative correlation, also of low magnitude, between parental support that recruited the child's planning ability and EF cognitive flexibility. The statistical analysis resulting from the Kruskal Wallis Test and the Dunn Test showed a significant difference between the dimensions ‘autonomy’ and ‘organization’ and the other dimensions of parental support, ‘cognitive flexibility’, ‘working memory’, ‘planning’ and ‘inhibitory control’. This is, the parents of this sample predominantly used parenting practices of support their children while carrying out homework that recruited these children's autonomy and organization skills. It is discussed the possibility that the quality, to the detriment of the frequency of parental support during the performance of the homework, has a greater impact on the executive functioning of children. In conclusion, it is suggested that both frequency, classified in objective terms, and quality should be considered in order to assess the impact of parental support during school work on the child's executive functioning. have a greater impact on children's executive functioning. In conclusion, it is suggested that both frequency, classified in objective terms, and quality should be considered in order to assess the impact of parental support during school work on the child's executive functioning. have a greater impact on children's executive functioning. In conclusion, it is suggested that both frequency, classified in objective terms, and quality should be considered in order to assess the impact of parental support during homework on the child's executive functioning.