Abstract
Introduction:
Core aspects of executive functions (EFs) are known to be related to academic skills such as literacy and numeracy. However, school outcomes may also be related to higher-level functions such as planning. Nevertheless, few studies have considered assessing natural manifestations of higher-level EFs in children who are on the cusp of entering formal schooling. One reason for this is the difficulty of obtaining ecologically valid measures of EFs in preschool-aged children.
Method:
We describe a novel task - building a striped Duplo tower subject to two constraints - designed to assess planning in real-world multi-action situation. Children were instructed to build a tower to a certain height by alternating between two different colors of blocks.
Results:
Performance on one of the constraints in this task was found to vary with age. Importantly, distinct components of multiple constraints planning performance predicted laboratory-based measures of inhibitory control and working memory efficacy.
Discussion:
Thus, this task provides a simple, cheap and effective way of assessing executive function in toddlers through the observation of natural behavior. It also opens up possibilities to investigate the neurodevelopment of EF in the real world.
Naturalistic planning in free-roaming toddlers under 3 years of age
Executive functions (EFs) are the cognitive processes that control and regulate goal-directed behaviors (Barkley, ; Miyake and Friedman, ; Diamond, ). Executive functions have been investigated at a basic, core-process, level and at a higher cognitive-control level. For example, working memory, inhibition, and set-shifting are generally considered to be core components of executive functions (Miyake et al., ; Diamond, ). Working memory is the ability to hold information in mind for a short period of time and, if necessary, to mentally manipulate this information (Miyake and Friedman, ; Diamond, ). Evidence suggests that this ability to keep representations in mind develops in the first 6 months of life (Pelphrey et al., ; Reznick et al., ) and improves across preschool years (Gathercole, , ; Espy and Bull, ). Inhibition is the ability to control one's attention, thoughts, behaviors, and/or emotions to override an external temptation or a strong internal predisposition (Miyake and Friedman, ; Diamond, ). Response inhibition, the ability to suppress a dominant response, particularly develops in the 1st year of life, continuing to improve over toddlerhood and the preschool years (Kochanska and Aksan, ; Garon et al., ; Kochanska et al., ; Friedman et al., ). Lastly, set-shifting is the ability to shift attention between different tasks and mental sets (Miyake and Friedman, ; Diamond, ); in addition, both response shifting and attention shifting develop over preschool years (Zelazo et al., , ; Espy et al., ; Garon et al., ).
It is hypothesized that the foundation of these core components lies in infancy or toddlerhood (Garon et al., ; Anderson and Reidy, ). However, there are also higher-level and more complex EF skills such as planning, reasoning, and problem-solving. It has been suggested that these higher EF skills are likely to be dependent on lower-level core aspects of EF (including working memory, inhibition, and set-shifting) (Figure 1, McCormack and Atance, ; Miyake and Friedman, ; Diamond, ). Developmental research into EF has largely been focused on the development of these lower-level core aspects of EF; however, research into the development of higher-level EF aspects has been relatively neglected. In the current study, we focus on the development of a naturalistic measurement of the higher-level EF component of planning. Planning is a complex set of mental and behavioral operations that brings together cognitive, emotional, and motivational resources to achieve the desired goals (Shallice, ; Friedman and Schonick, ). In past studies, planning of simple actions and action sequences in infancy and childhood has been linked to improvements in the core aspects of executive functions (Pennequin et al., ; Gottwald et al., ; Yanaoka and Saito, , ; Schröer et al., ), and planning abilities on standard tasks such as the Tower of London have argued to be related to inhibition and set-shifting (Baughman and Cooper, ; Cooper and Marsh, ), suggesting a tight link between lower- and higher-level components of EF.
Figure 1
There is substantial evidence that the core aspects of EF are related to school readiness and academic achievement in early childhood years (e.g., Bull and Scerif,
Similarly, many studies have found a combination of several core aspects of EF that are related to school readiness and academic achievement, suggesting that those higher EFs that are dependent on multiple core aspects of EFs might also relate to school readiness and school success. For example, the combination of inhibition and set-shifting was found by Shaul and Schwartz (
While it is well-known that the development of lower-level EF skills is related to improved school readiness in later life, much less is known about how the development of higher-level EF skills such as planning is related to school readiness and school success. This stands in contrast to the fact that, in later life, for example in late adolescence, higher-level EFs such as planning are known to be important for academic success (Baars et al.,
There are various tasks to provide measures of the core aspects of executive functions in early childhood (e.g., Garon et al.,
However, real-world action planning often involves multiple goals, constraints, or goal hierarchies. For example, something as simple as making a cup of tea in the morning involves a goal hierarchy of setting an overarching goal and then establishing the necessary subgoals to accomplish the task (Cooper et al.,
The aim of the current study was to develop a measure of planning based on a naturally occurring behavior suitable for use with children on the cusp of entering the school system. To this end, children were instructed to build a tall tower (height constraint) that was striped—i.e., alternating between colors (striped constraint)—with Duplo blocks. In this particular study, we aimed to evaluate this task cross-sectionally in 2-year-olds and investigate whether performance on this task is related to performance on standardized measures of executive functions. It was hypothesized that planning actions according to multiple goal constraints would improve over the 3rd year of life and that children's planning ability would be related to their performance on standard tests of the core components of executive functions. If true, then the quality of tower building could be used as a proxy measure of executive function development.
Method
Participants
A total of 70 2- to 3-year-olds participated in this study. The sample consisted of 20 24-month-olds (M = 24.77 months, SD = 12.69 days, 8 females), 20 30-month-olds (M = 30.10 months, SD = 21.23 days, 12 females), and 30 36-month-olds (M = 36.50 months, SD = 19.20 days, 18 females). This study was part of a larger study into different types of action sequence planning development in early childhood. These children's performance on some more standard EF tasks (i.e., inhibitory control, task switching, and working memory) has been reported elsewhere (Schröer et al.,
As a result of COVID-19 restrictions, all 36-month-olds were tested with all adults wearing a face covering and increased distance between the experimenter and the participant. A total of 13 participants were excluded from the data analysis because (i) the child did not follow any instructions (n = 1), (ii) the caregiver influenced the testing session (n = 2), (iii) the child had no data for the working memory task (n = 1), (iv) the child had no data for the Duplo task (n = 1), or (v) the child did not pass the initial requirement of building a tower of more than 2 blocks high (n = 8, see planning task procedure).
Procedure
Participants were tested in a quiet room with their caregivers seated behind them. The children were seated in an age-appropriate chair at a table. They were presented with the tasks in the order described below. The working memory, motor competence, and inhibition tasks were also reported by Schröer et al. (
Planning task
Children were instructed to build a tower out of Duplo blocks for a bunny puppet named Fluffy. Children had to take into account two constraints: (1) height constraint: making the tower as tall as the tower displayed on the wall (20 blocks, 40 cm) and (2) striped constraint: making it striped by alternating between two different sets of colored blocks. Fluffy showed how the child should make a striped tower using three yellow and three green blocks similar to the picture of the tower fixed to the wall next to their table. The picture was present to help explain the task constraints and served as a goal reminder. Both task constraints were explained explicitly to each child. Children were presented with one box of blue blocks, one box of red blocks, and a green building plate (Figure 2) and were given one attempt to build the tower.
Figure 2

Set-up of the tower task. (A) the child's workspace, (B) a completed tower with a reference picture in the back, and (C) the whole workspace with the reference picture.
The task was considered complete when the child indicated that their tower was finished. Children's performance was coded offline. The height constraint was coded as the height of the tower in the number of blocks. This variable was transformed into a binary variable reflecting the success on the height constraint: 1 for a successful tower between 15 and 25 blocks (i.e., between 30 and 50 cm in height; chosen in advance of running the analysis) and 0 for a smaller or taller tower. The ability to successfully complete the striped constraint was coded as the number of color switches on the tower divided by the total number of blocks minus 1. This resulted in a proportion score between 0 and 1, with 0 indicating only one color used and 1 indicating a perfect striped tower. As above, eight participants were excluded from the analysis because they failed to build a tower of more than two blocks high. This criterion ensured that each child included had an understanding of the goal.
Because of the limited verbal abilities of children in this age range (Colson and Dworkin,
Working memory task
Working memory updating (WM) was assessed using a spinning pot task (Hughes and Ensor,
Inhibition task
Inhibition skills were assessed with the magic wand task (Friedman et al.,
Results
All analyses were carried out using RStudio (version 1.2.1335). The data demonstrating that performance on both the working memory task as well as the inhibition task improves with age in this sample can be found in Schröer et al. (
Age-related effects on planning
Tower height constraint
Figure 3 shows the proportion of participants in each age group who built the tower to the correct height (between 15 and 25 blocks; blue), built it too low (red), or built it too high (yellow). A chi-squared test of association showed no effect of age group on the ability to achieve the constraint of height (χ2(2) = 5.12, p = .063).
Figure 3

Proportion of children for each age group who successfully completed the tower (blue), built the tower too low (red), or built the tower too high (yellow).
Tower striped constraint
A stepwise linear regression with age group as a predictor and the proportion striped score as a dependent variable showed that age group was a significant predictor of proportion striped (F (1.56) = 15.03, p < .001, Table 1). Older toddlers were more successful at adhering to the striped constraint (Figure 4).
Table 1
| B | SE | B | t | P | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Step 1: Proportion striped | < .001 | ||||
| Intercept | −0.76 | 0.29 | −2.63 | .011 | |
| Age group | 0.04 | 0.01 | 0.46 | 3.88 | < .001 |
| R2 = .212 | |||||
Stepwise linear regression model with proportion striped (striped constraint) predicted by age group.
Figure 4

Boxplots for the proportion striped (constraint of striped) per age group.
Relation between striped and height constraint
A binary logistic regression was used to investigate whether performance on the striped constraint predicted success on the height constraint. At the group level, performance on the striped constraint was not related to performance on the height constraint (χ2(1) = 0.28, p = .597). However, looking at each age group separately, there was no significant relation in 24-month-olds (χ2(1) = 2.82, p = .093), in 30-month-olds (χ2(1) = 2.61, p = .107), or in 36-month-olds, the proportion striped was a significant predictor of the success on the height constraint (χ2(1) = 8.31, p = .004). In other words, for 36-month-olds, children who succeeded on the constraint of height were also likely to have achieved a high score on the striped constraint (Figure 5).
Figure 5

Boxplots for the relation between proportion striped (striped constraint) and success on height constraint (1 = tower to correct height, 0 = tower incorrect height) per age group.
Relation between task execution and EF measures
Inhibition
A stepwise binary logistic regression with age group, working memory score, height constraint success, and proportion striped (striped constraint) as predictors and the inhibition score as a dependent variable showed that height constraint success predicted the inhibition score over and above age group (only age group: χ2(1) = 4.98, p = .026, Nagelkerke R2= .138; age group and height constraint: χ2(1) = 4.43, p = .035, Nagelkerke R2= .251). As shown in Figure 6, older children and children who built the tower to the correct height were more likely to succeed on the inhibition task (and score 1). The striped constraint did not significantly predict the inhibition score. Working memory did neither significantly add to the model nor separately predict inhibition (χ2(1) = 0.20, p = .657).
Figure 6

The proportion of children who succeeded on or failed the inhibition task as a function of age group (left panel) and the height constraint (right panel). Note: Children who succeeded in the inhibition task scored 1, while children who failed scored 0. Similarly, children who built the tower to the correct height scored 1 on the height constraint success score, while children who failed to build the tower to the correct height scored 0.
Working memory
A stepwise linear regression with age group, inhibition score, height constraint success, and proportion striped (striped constraint) as predictors and working memory score as dependent variable showed that proportion striped (striped constraint) significantly predicted working memory score (F(1.55) = 7.96, p = .007, Table 2). A higher proportion striped was associated with a higher working memory score (Figure 7). The height constraint was not significantly related to working memory. Inhibition scores did not significantly improve the model.
Table 2
| B | SE | B | t | P | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Step 1: Working memory | .007 | ||||
| Intercept | 10.64 | 0.58 | 18.37 | < .001 | |
| Proportion striped | 3.26 | 1.15 | 0.36 | 2.82 | .007 |
| R2 = .126 | |||||
Stepwise linear regression model with working memory score predicted by a striped constraint.
Figure 7

Relationship between proportion striped (secondary constraint) and working memory score.
Discussion
This study presents a simple and cost-effective way of assessing planning and executive functions in very young children in naturalistic environments. Children participated in a task in which they were instructed to build a Duplo tower taking into account two goal constraints: the height and the striped constraint. The task is simple and naturalistic, allowing its use in nurseries and school settings and making it particularly well suited for use in future to investigate the relationship between planning and school readiness. It is a coarse measure of EF level of development which can be used as a screening instrument. One advantage of the Duplo tower task is that it does not require a language response. It is also simple to operationalize with materials commonly available in nurseries or at home. Most 2-year-olds showed evidence of acting in line with the goal, that is, they built a tower of at least three blocks, demonstrating that they at least understood the instructions and were motivated to act in line with the instructions. Children between 2 and 3 years of age were equally able to achieve the height constraint; however, the ability to achieve the striped constraint improved with age. Older children were more likely to coordinate the two constraints effectively and build a striped tower.
Importantly, inhibition scores measured using a standard task could be related to performance on the height constraint. Children who were successful on the height constraint were also more likely to be better at the inhibition task. Moreover, working memory was predicted by performance on the striped constraint, and better performance on the planning task was associated with a higher working memory score. Thus, while the tower task does not have the resolution of many of the standard EF tasks, it provides an easy-to-use, fun, and natural screening tool for EF-related school readiness factors, such as planning, working memory, and inhibition. This might be especially important given that, in late adolescence, planning is known to be an important factor related to academic success (Baars et al.,
Our results are also consistent with the hypothesis that the development of executive functions and complex action planning are related (McCormack and Atance,
Interestingly, the working memory score was not predicted by the height constraint, while inhibition was not predicted by the striped constraint in the Duplo tower task. Furthermore, working memory did not predict the inhibition score. In adulthood, the three core components of EF are correlated but functionally separated (Miyake and Friedman,
One limitation of the current study is that a cross-sectional design was used to investigate age-related effects on the Duplo planning task. Future studies could investigate the improvement of planning over preschool age by using a longitudinal design to examine whether this task can be used to predict EF and school readiness prospectively. A second potential limitation is that we did not take into account the children's height. All children were seated at the same table and the same chair, and the picture was located at exactly the same location on the wall. However, as there were no age effects in the height construction constraints, it is unlikely that age-related physical height of the children influenced their tower building performance.
Future studies could also use this Duplo tower task to assess the relationship of planning (higher-level EF) in very early childhood with school readiness and academic success in later childhood. This research area is of special interest since many studies have assessed EFs to relate to school readiness and success among children of 4–5 years of age (e.g., Bull et al.,
The aim of the current study was to develop a naturalistic measure of planning that could be used in the real world. A key challenge in psychology and neuroscience is to move away from traditional laboratory studies and investigate the development and brain function in the real world (Dahl,
The next step for educational neuroscience is to adopt simple naturalistic tasks such as the Duplo tower task to assess brain development using wireless neuroimaging methods. This would allow the investigation of the functional brain development associated with EF development that is critical for school readiness. In cognitive neuroscience, research into real-world neuroscience has already demonstrated that wireless fNIRS can be used to examine brain patterns during real-world behavior in adults (Pinti et al.,
Statements
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Ethics statement
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Birkbeck College Ethics Committee. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin.
Author contributions
DM, RC, and LS conceived and designed the study and wrote the manuscript. LS collected the data. DM and LS analysed the data. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Funding
This study received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 program under grant agreement no. 765298.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank all families that participated in this study and Cara Hatton, Cristina Vella, Truc Do, Joel Coll Ferrer, Emma Fulford, and Linn Steube for their help with recruitment, testing, and coding.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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Summary
Keywords
executive function (EF) skills, children, development, naturalistic, planning
Citation
Schröer L, Cooper RP and Mareschal D (2023) Assessing executive functions in free-roaming 2- to 3-year-olds. Front. Psychol. 14:1210109. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1210109
Received
21 April 2023
Accepted
02 June 2023
Published
29 June 2023
Volume
14 - 2023
Edited by
Andrew Tolmie, University College London, United Kingdom
Reviewed by
Caroline Fitzpatrick, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada; Ruth Ford, Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom
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Copyright
© 2023 Schröer, Cooper and Mareschal.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Lisanne Schröer schroer@essb.eur.nl
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