Convergence between task performance scores, researcher observations, and parent ratings of executive functions and emotion regulation in neurodiverse toddlers at 20 months

Executive Functions (EFs) are higher-order cognitive skills that enable individuals to regulate impulses, retain information, filter out distractions, and shift attention in response to changing demands. Various measures have been developed to assess these functions in toddlers across different contexts. However, convergence between these measures has not yet been established. Nor has it been verified whether these measures work in similar ways amongst children more-likely to experience EF difficulties, such as children at elevated likelihood for autism or ADHD or already showing autistic traits. Here, we measure associations between performance-based scores (from a battery of 5 EF tasks), parent ratings of EFs using Early Executive Functions Questionnaire Cognitive EF (EEFQ-CEF) and emotion-regulation (EEFQ-Regulation) scores, and observer-report of Self-Regulation scores (Adapted Toddler Self-Regulation Assessment) in a neurodiverse sample of 110 toddlers aged 20 months. Additionally, we investigate whether these associations are moderated by likelihood of autism/ADHD, or elevated autistic traits. Correlational analyses reveal positive moderate associations between all scores, except for performance-based EF and EEFQ-Regulation (r=.01). Moderation analyses indicate the association between EEFQ-CEF and EEFQ-Regulation is stronger for children with low levels of autistic traits than those with high levels. No other associations were significantly moderated by autistic traits. These results demonstrate that toddler EF can be captured with moderate consistency across different evaluative contexts (parent-rating, child performance, and researcher observations) and populations (neurodivergent or neurotypical), and that (parent-reported) day-to-day emotion regulation does not link with performance on structured tasks, but is associated with day-to-day cognitive EF, particularly amongst neurotypical toddlers.