Ricerc@Sapienza

Executive functions (EFs) in children with insomnia have not been sufficiently assessed in the literature. This study aimed to describe sleep patterns and habits and EF abilities in preschool children with insomnia, compared to healthy control patients, and to evaluate the relationships between sleep patterns and EFs.

A novel battery (BAFE; Valeri etal. 2015) was used in order to assess three executive function (EF) abilities (working memory, inhibition and shifting) in a sample of 27 intellectually able preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with 27 typically developing children matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Differences in EF skills were analyzed in participants with distinct ASD symptom severity. Children with ASD performed worse than typical controls on both set-shifting and inhibition, but not on visuo-spatial working memory.

Background and aim
In the last decades mild motor problems and specific cognitive difficulties without major deficits are the most
dominant neurodevelopmental sequelae in children born preterm. This study aimed to explore motor skills and
executive functions (EF) and their relationship in a group of preterm children 3- to 5-year old. In addition, we
considered the comparison between Very Preterm (VP), born equal or less than 32 gestational weeks (GW) and
Late Preterm (LP; 33-37 GW) children in each performance domain.
Method

Background and aim
Handwriting is a complex task and requires integration of cognition, graphomotor skills and Executive Functions.
The role of handwriting automation and EF in the writing process is known primarily from school-based
studies: there is a relationship between handwriting and EF in learning writing skills, particularly in the early
years of primary school. The link between the emerging writing skills and EF in pre-schoolers isn’t so evident
though. Identifying the relationship between these skills can help provide better support for children

The inhibitory mechanism named backward inhibition (BI) counteracts interference of previous tasks supporting task switching. For instance, if task set A is inhibited when switching to task B, then it should take longer to immediately return to task set A (as occurring in an ABA sequence), as compared to a task set that has not been just inhibited (as occurring in a CBA sequence), because extra time will be needed to overcome the inhibition of task set A. The evidenced prefrontal and cerebellar role in inhibitory control suggests their involvement even in BI.

Executive Functions (EFs) are fundamental to every aspect of life. The present study was implemented to evaluate factors influencing their development in a group of preschools orally educated profoundly deaf children of hearing parents, who received CI within two years of age.

Background. Poor executive functions are associated with dysregulated eating and greater caloric intake in healthy samples. In parallel, findings suggested that sleep deprivation impairs executive functions.
Methods. We investigated whether partial sleep deprivation impairs executive functions in individuals reporting binge eating (BE, N = 14) and healthy controls (C, N = 13). Switch cost and backward inhibition were measured using the Task Switching Paradigm after a habitual night of sleep and after a night of partial sleep deprivation.