Longitudinal Resting-State fNIRS Study of Neural Connectivity in Early Childhood

Older children responded significantly faster and more accurately than younger children, indicating developmental gains in processing efficiency and attentional control. Trial congruency also affected performance: children were more accurate on congruent trials than incongruent trials, demonstrating that conflicting distractors interfered with correct responding. However, reaction time did not differ significantly across trial types.

In addition, the size of the congruency effect in accuracy did not significantly decrease with age, suggesting that although overall performance improved, the difficulty of resolving conflict remained stable across the sampled age range. </p><p dir="ltr">These findings provide evidence for substantial growth in executive functioning during early childhood while suggesting that improvements may reflect increases in efficiency rather than increases in the ability to ignore distractions.

The study contributes to a growing understanding of preschool cognitive development and provides a behavioral foundation for future work examining the neural mechanisms underlying executive function.</p>