A Hierarchical Model of Cognitive Flexibility in Children: Extending The Relationship Between Flexibility, Creativity and Academic Achievement

Child Neuropsychology
A Journal on Normal and Abnormal Development in Childhood and

Adolescence
ISSN: 0929-7049 (Print) 1744-4136 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ncny20
A hierarchical model of cognitive flexibility in

children: Extending the relationship between
flexibility, creativity and academic achievement
Vanessa Arán Filippetti & Gabriela Krumm
To cite this article: Vanessa Arán Filippetti & Gabriela Krumm (2020): A hierarchical model of
cognitive flexibility in children: Extending the relationship between flexibility, creativity and academic
achievement, Child Neuropsychology, DOI: 10.1080/09297049.2019.1711034
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2019.1711034
Published online: 08 Jan 2020.
Submit your article to this journal
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ncny20
CHILD NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2019.1711034
A hierarchical model of cognitive flexibility in children:

Extending the relationship between flexibility, creativity and
academic achievement
Vanessa Arán Filippettia,b and Gabriela Krumma,b
a
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Centro Interdisciplinario de
Investigaciones en Psicología Matemática y Experimental (CIIPME), Buenos Aires, Argentina; bFacultad de
Humanidades, Educación y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Adventista del Plata, Entre Ríos, Argentina
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

We conducted two empirical studies to (1) explore the latent struc- Received 25 July 2019
ture of cognitive flexibility in children as measured by performance- Accepted 27 December 2019
based tasks, (2) analyze the contribution of working memory (WM) KEYWORDS
and inhibition to reactive and spontaneous flexibility, and (3) exam- Reactive Flexibility;
ine the contribution of the different flexibility components to aca- Spontaneous Flexibility;
demic skills (i.e., reading comprehension and writing) and creativity. Latent structure; Creativity;
In S1 (n = 112 8- to 12-year-old children), confirmatory factor Reading; Writing
analysis (CFA) showed best fit for the two-factor solution with
reactive flexibility (RF) and spontaneous flexibility (SF) as separate
but related components. When considering the joint contribution
of WM and inhibition to both cognitive flexibility components, it
was found that WM and inhibition contributed to SF, whereas only
inhibition contributed to RF. Besides, only SF proved to be
a significant predictor of writing and reading comprehension by
using a latent-variable structural equation approach (SEM). In S2
(n = 177 8- to 13-year-old children), hierarchical regressions and
SEM models showed consistently that the flexibility component in
relation to creativity deals with the ability to generate diverse
responses driven by internal stimuli (i.e., spontaneous flexibility).
Taken together, these results suggest that cognitive flexibility is not
a unified construct. Besides, the close relationship between SF and
creativity and academic skills raise the question whether consider-
ing SF as a higher-level form of cognitive flexibility (different from
a lower-level shifting skill) could be an interesting approach for the
study of cognitive flexibility in children.
Executive functions (EF) encompasses a series of cognitive processes that allow self-
regulation-behavior, thought and emotions, and the flexible adaptation to context based
on aims associated with the characteristics of specific situations (Arán Filippetti & López,
2014). These higher-order cognitive processes emerge as important predictors of pre-
academic skills (Espy et al., 2004; Shaul & Schwartz, 2014) and learning and academic
performance at school age (Arán Filippetti & Richaud, 2017; Jacobson, Williford, & Pianta,
CONTACT Vanessa Arán Filippetti vanessaaranf@gmail.com Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en

Psicología Matemática y Experimental (CIIPME-CONICET). Dirección: Teniente General Juan Domingo Perón 2158
C1040AAH, Buenos Aires, Argentina
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 V. ARÁN FILIPPETTI AND G. KRUMM
2011; St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006; Thorell, Veleiro, Siu, & Mohammadi, 2013).
Most scientific literature in children recognized the EF (1) shifting or cognitive flexibility,
(2) working memory (WM) or updating and (3) inhibition, within a three-factor structure
that acknowledges different combinations. For instance, the dimensions WM-Shifting-
Inhibition (see e.g., Arán Filippetti & Richaud, 2017; Best, Miller, & Jones, 2009; Bull &
Scerif, 2001; Dajani & Uddin, 2015; Espy et al., 2004; Fenesy & Lee, 2018; Lehto, Juujärvi,
Kooistra, & Pulkkinen, 2003; Messer et al., 2018; Rose, Feldman, & Jankowski, 2012;
Theodoraki, McGeown, Rhodes, & MacPherson, 2019; Wu et al., 2011), WM-Cognitive
flexibility-Inhibition (Diamond, 2006, 2016; Hughes, 2011; Nayfeld, Fuccillo, & Greenfield,
2013; Pozzetti et al., 2014) or Updating-Inhibition-Shifting (Duan, Wei, Wang, & Shi, 2010)
have been proposed in diverse neurodevelopmental studies as components of the EF
structure (for a review see Tirapu-Ustárroz, Cordero-Andrés, & Basuela-Herreras, 2018).
These discrepancies among studies highlight the importance of drawing on a set of specific
tasks to assess each component, so as not to use the distinct terms as interchangeable, e.g.,
whether WM or updating and cognitive flexibility or shifting (see Morra, Panesi, Traverso,
& Usai, 2018). However, previous research with children have shown that WM and
updating loaded onto a single factor (St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006), probably
suggesting an updating/executive working memory (Messer et al., 2018) or a working
memory updating (Cragg & Chevalier, 2012) component, with less empirical evidence as
whether shifting or cognitive flexibility could be used interchangeably. Though some
studies have also supported aunidimensional (Willoughby & Blair, 2011) and a two-
factor EF structure (Huizinga, Dolan, & van der Molen, 2006; Messer et al., 2018; St Clair-
Thompson & Gathercole, 2006; van der Sluis, de Jong, & van der Leij, 2007), and two
a lesser extend a four-factor one (Engel de Abreu et al., 2014; Klenberg, Korkman, & Lahti-
Nuuttila, 2001), a recent meta-analysis have revealed that in children, the probability of
occurrence of a three factor model – where cognitive flexibility, inhibition and WM became
predominant dimensions – is higher than that of studies focusing on other structures
(Tirapu Ustárroz, Bausela Herreras, & Cordero Andrés, 2018).
In turn, theoretical background and increasing empirical evidence have allowed
conceptualizing each EF components as a construct, with differentiated dimensions.
The relevance of such conception lies in the fact that the different components of WM,
inhibition and cognitive flexibility, would be selectively associated with different cogni-
tive, social and academic variables. For example, specific WM components (Alloway,
Gathercole, Willis, & Adams, 2004) and subtypes of inhibition (Costantini & Hoving,
1973) proved to be differentially associated with cognitive skills. Furthermore, some
research has begun to explore the specific developmental trajectories for the subcompo-
nents of each EF (see e.g., Gathercole, Pickering, Ambridge, & Wearing, 2004; Vuontela
et al., 2003 for WM construct; Blakey, Visser, & Carroll, 2016 for cognitive flexibility
tasks). This has generated increasing interest within the field of developmental neurop-
sychology, with studies that recognized the importance of considering each EF as
a construct, further analyzing its selectively contribution to other cognitive, social and
academic skills.
Although WM and inhibition have received widespread attention in the existing
research literature, there has been limited investigation as regards cognitive flexibility
in children. For instance, recent studies on inhibition have demonstrated the existence of
dissociable components in young adults (see e.g., Brydges et al., 2012) that would
CHILD NEUROPSYCHOLOGY 3
partially depend on WM capacity in children (Tiego, Testa, Bellgrove, Pantelis, &

Whittle, 2018). With respect to cognitive flexibility, two main subtypes have been
proposed: (1) reactive flexibility and (2) spontaneous flexibility (Eslinger & Grattan,
1993). Reactive flexibility entails the ability to modify behaviors in face of environmental
changing demands (Ebersbach & Hagedorn, 2011) while spontaneous flexibility refers to
subjects’ ability to produce a diversity of ideas and novel responses. Recently, some
authors have proposed considering cognitive flexibility as a property of the cognitive
system rather than a specific cognitive ability (Dajani & Uddin, 2015; Ionescu, 2012).
This underlies the importance of examining cognitive flexibility not only as a skill within
the EF construct (i.e., as measure by set-shifting and task-switching tasks) but also as an
attribute that emerges from the interaction of several cognitive processes (Ionescu, 2012).
This could explain why cognitive flexibility may overlap, for example, with the concept of
creativity when being considered as a property rather than as a static skill.
Previous studies on cognitive flexibility in children: About the different subtypes

Several studies have focused on the need to differentiate between distinct cognitive flex-
ibility components to study both their development (Carroll, Blakey, & FitzGibbon, 2016)
and association with other academic (Arán Filippetti & Richaud, 2017) and cognitive
(Blakey et al., 2016) skills. Studies in this line assumed that cognitive flexibility should
not be considered as a general capacity, but rather it should be assessed through different
cognitive tasks (Deák & Wiseheart, 2015), on board with the idea that this construct should
not be reduced to a single shifting process (see Cragg & Chevalier, 2012). For instance,
Chevalier et al. (2012) addressed the respective contributions of inhibition and working
memory to two underlying components of flexibility in children (i.e., goal representation
and switch implementation). The authors found that both EF were associated only with
goal representation as valued by mixing cost. More recently, Blakey et al. (2016) have shown
the importance of differentiating two types of cognitive flexibility in preschool children,
namely, the ability to switch rules either when dealing with conflicting information, or in
the presence of distracting information. Authors found that the contribution of working
memory and inhibitory control to cognitive flexibility in 2- to 4-year-old vary as a function
of the cognitive flexibility tasks. In older children (7- to 11-year-old), Ebersbach and
Hagedorn (2011) also found selective associations by examining the contribution of three
aspects of cognitive flexibility (i.e., reactive, spontaneous and representational) to spatial
representation of children’s drawings. They particularly encountered that only spontaneous
and representational flexibility turned out to be predictors of the spatial drawing score.
Thus, the aforementioned studies (i.e., Blakey et al., 2016; Chevalier et al., 2012; Ebersbach
& Hagedorn, 2011) defined cognitive flexibility as a dimensional construct that includes
different flexibility skills imposing demand on different cognitive processes. However,
although there are studies that have emphasized the need to distinguish different types of
cognitive flexibility, or even proposals that have assumed a hierarchical model of cognitive
flexibility (see e.g., Dajani & Uddin, 2015), most research mainly considered this differ-
entiation on tasks that value reactive flexibility (as measure with set-shifting or task-
switching tasks), being fewer those distinguishing between reactive and spontaneous
flexibility. Moreover, many neuropsychological studies operationalize the shifting dimen-
sion using either spontaneous and reactive flexibility tasks indistinctly, or cognitive
flexibility and shifting as synonyms (see Cragg & Chevalier, 2012; Ionescu, 2012 for
a discussion). Thus, for instance, verbal fluency tasks (Bodimeade, Whittingham, Lloyd,
& Boyd, 2013; Eslinger, Biddle, Pennington, & Page, 1999; Lehto et al., 2003; Maylor,
Moulson, Muncer, & Taylor, 2002; Viterbori, Usai, Traverso, & De Franchis, 2015), the
Trail Making tasks (Anderson, 2001; Bodimeade et al., 2013; Lehto et al., 2003; Messer et al.,
2018; Monette, Bigras, & Guay, 2011; Monette, Bigras, & Lafrenière, 2015; van der Sluis, de
Jong, & van der Leij, 2004; van der Ven, Kroesbergen, Boom, & Leseman, 2013) and the
WCST (Anderson, 2001; Bonino & Cattelino, 1999; Ebersbach & Hagedorn, 2011; Eslinger
et al., 1999; Maylor et al., 2002; Miyake et al., 2000) have been considered in diverse
previous studies either as measures of shifting or cognitive flexibility. Even though this is
correct, further studies are needed to determine whether spontaneous and reactive flex-
ibility could be taken as a general construct, or rather as distinct components included
under the common of flexibility.
Cognitive flexibility, creativity and academic achievement

Creativity has been defined as the highest expression of new ideas, the flexibility of
perspectives, and the ability to combine unrelated concepts in different ways and avoid
common paths (Benedek, Franz, Heene, & Neubauer, 2012; Benedek, Könen, & Neubauer,
2012; Chi, 1997). This definition suggests the positive influence of cognitive flexibility on
creativity, as the former would be necessary to generate novel or unusual ideas and switch
between unrelated concepts in a broad manner (e.g., considering a barrel as a musical
instrument, rather than a container) (Pan & You, 2018). Empirical studies have confirmed
the association between cognitive flexibility and creativity both in adult (Benedek et al.,
2012; Gilhooly, Fioratou, Anthony, & Wynn, 2007; Pan & Yu, 2018) and children (Krumm,
Arán Filippetti, & Gutiérrez, 2018). Notably, a recent proposed model of creativity regards
associative fluency, as measure by verbal fluency tasks, as the central mechanism through
which WM and intelligence contribute to divergent and convergent thinking (Lee &
Therriault, 2013). Although most studies analyzing the relationship between creativity
and cognitive flexibility have not differentiated their components, it would seem that
spontaneous flexibility mostly predict performance on creativity tasks. Empirical evidence
supporting this line of reasoning can be found in previous studies that have found and
association between verbal fluency (a well-known measure of spontaneous cognitive flex-
ibility) and divergent thinking tasks (Gilhooly et al., 2007; Krumm et al., 2018; Nusbaum &
Silvia, 2011). Moreover, as spontaneous cognitive flexibility has been strongly related to the
concept of creativity (Ebersbach & Hagedorn, 2011), it is not unexpected for tasks evaluat-
ing these abilities to imply similar responses demands.
As regards the relationship between cognitive flexibility and academic achievement,
empirical evidence has focused mainly on the analysis of the former defined as an EF
component (i.e., shifting), without differentiating its components through factor analysis
techniques. For instance, Bull and Scerif (2001) found that each EF component (i.e., WM,
switching and inhibition) contributes to math achievement in children age 7 to 8 years.
Consistently, a recent study conducted in children aged 8 to 12 years showed that shifting (as
measured with reactive and spontaneous tasks) predicted arithmetic problem-solving (Arán
Filippetti & Richaud, 2017). Other authors, who have analyzed only the spontaneous flex-
ibility component (i.e., verbal fluency) in 7- to- 16- years old children and adolescents also
found that this EF predicted mathematics achievement (Rosselli, Ardila, Matute, &
Inozemtseva, 2009). In reading area, shifting (Arán Filippetti & López, 2016; van der Sluis
et al., 2007) or a combined Working Memory/Cognitive Flexibility factor (Engel de Abreu
et al., 2014) have also resulted on an important predictor of reading ability. A recent meta-
analysis showed that the relationship between shifting and either reading or mathematics are
substantial and significant (Yeniad, Malda, Mesman, Van Ijzendoorn, & Pieper, 2013).
Finally, in terms of writing, initiation and set shifting could differentiate between good and
poor writers (Hooper, Swartz, Wakely, de Kruif, & Montgomery, 2002). Consistently, using
distinct tasks to evaluate EF (i.e., verbal fluency, switching attention, inhibition, planning and
WM) and writing activities (i.e., note taking and written reports), Altemeier, Jones, Abbott,
and Berninger (2006) found that inhibition and verbal fluency predicted note taking and
report-writing respectively in 3rd and 5th graders. In turn, planning predicted report-writing
only in 3rd grade children.
The present study

This study aimed to test a structural model of cognitive flexibility in children including two
subtypes of flexibility and analyze the contribution of both components to reading, writing
and creativity by means of two empirical studies. To measure reactive flexibility, we used
the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the TMT. WCST (Heaton, Chelune, Talley,
Kay, & Curtiss, 1993) is a well-known EF measure (Greve, Stickle, Love, Bianchini, &
Stanford, 2005), of set-shifting (Bull & Scerif, 2001; Cragg & Chevalier, 2012) or reactive
flexibility (Bonino & Cattelino, 1999; Ebersbach & Hagedorn, 2011; Eslinger et al., 1999;
Maylor et al., 2002; Parkin & Lawrence, 1994; Schiffer et al., 2010; Tomer, Fisher, Giladi, &
Aharon-Peretz, 2002). Indeed, previous studies have regarded “cognitive flexibility” as the
factor that integrates WCST variables (Boone, Pontón, Gorsuch, González, & Miller, 1998;
Rodríguez-Aranda & Sundet, 2006), showing that this test taps the shifting component of
EF (Fisk & Sharp, 2004; Miyake et al., 2000). TMT is another well-known measure of set
shifting that includes both a shift and a non-shift condition, in as much as it requires
continual switching between two stimuli (Messer et al., 2018). Indeed, raw TMT scores
(Atkinson & Ryan, 2008; Im-Bolter, Johnson, & Pascual-Leone, 2006; Lehto et al., 2003;
Monette et al., 2015; Schiffer et al., 2010), the number of perseveration errors (Monette
et al., 2015) or its derived punctuations, e.g. B-A time (Agostino, Johnson, & Pascual-Leone,
2010; Messer et al., 2018; Morra, Bisagno, Caviola, Delfante, & Mammarella, 2019; Schiffer
et al., 2010) have been used in previous studies as an index of shifting. To tap spontaneous
flexibility, we used verbal fluency tests and the Five-Point test. Verbal fluency is another
broadly used instrument for the assessment of EF, particularly to measure cognitive
(Gyurak et al., 2009; Hurks et al., 2010; Korkman, Kemp, & Kirk, 2001; Lehto et al.,
2003) or spontaneous flexibility (Cools, Brouwer, de Jong, & Slooff, 2000; Eslinger et al.,
1999; Maylor et al., 2002; Parkin & Lawrence, 1994; Roy et al., 2014; Regard, 1981; Schiffer
et al., 2010). It has been stated that either semantic verbal fluency (SVF) or phonological
verbal fluency (PVF) tasks demands executive functioning, being sensitive to frontal lobe
dysfunction (Henry & Crawford, 2004). Finally, design generation techniques, such as the
Five Point Test, are considered effective measures to examine EF (Korkman et al., 2001;
Lezak, Howieson, Loring, & Fischer, 2004; Matute, Rosselli, Ardila, & Morales, 2004),
specifically, as an index of cognitive (Hurks et al., 2010) or spontaneous flexibility
(Ebersbach & Hagedorn, 2011; Eslinger et al., 1999; Regard, 1981; Roy et al., 2014).
Based on previous theoretical and empirical background, we hypothesized that cognitive

flexibility is a multidimensional construct with capacities representing: (1) reactive flex-
ibility and (2) spontaneous flexibility. In addition, we suggested that each flexibility subtype
imposes different cognitive demands. Finally, we assumed that the ability to be flexible in
a task that values spontaneous flexibility predicts the ability to produce novel and original
responses in creativity tasks and higher proficiency in reading and creative writing. If this is
the case, then spontaneous flexibility could be considered as a far more advance function
than reactive flexibility (probably more related to shifting), emerging from the interaction
of an effective executive functioning. To this end, different measures will be used to assess
cognitive flexibility, other executive skills (i.e., WM and inhibition), academic achievement
and creativity. The relationship between these constructs will be analyzed in two different
empirical studies and within a latent variable framework (Structural Equation Modeling).
Study 1 (S1)
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 112 children (51 girls and 61 boys) aged between 8 to 12 years
from Argentina. From the data obtained in the school, inclusion criteria included: (1)
children with no known history of neurological or psychiatric treatment; (2) who attend
school regularly; (3) with no grade repetition. Prior to the administration of cognitive
tasks, K-BIT test was used (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2000) in order to ensure that children
performed within the normal range for their age group. Intellectual functioning resulted
within the range expected for children (M = 91.75; SD = 10.56).
Materials and procedures

Interviews were conducted with school principals who receive detailed information on
the research. It was made clear that participation was voluntary and anonymous. Parent
or legal guardians’ permission and written consent was requested before assessment.
Children were assessed in a quiet room at school, in three individual sessions lasting up
to 40 to 50 minutes each and in a group one. The evaluation was conducted by highly
qualified specialists (i.e., neuropsychologists and psychologists). The sequence of the
individual administration of the tasks was: (1) K-BIT, (2) Digit Span and Letter–Number
Sequencing, (3) Stroop, (4) NEPSY, Knock and Tap, (5) Trail Making test, (6) Verbal
fluency, (7) WCST, (8) Five-Point test and (9) Reading comprehension subtest, ENI. D2,
Attention Test, and the writing test (from PROESC battery) were administered collec-
tively in a last session. The instruments used for analysis are described below.
Reactive and spontaneous flexibility

Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) (Heaton et al., 1993)
Four stimulus key cards are presented to participants (i.e., one red triangle, two green
stars, three yellow crosses, and four blue circles). Afterward, they receive a stack of 128
additional response cards in order to match each card to key ones. Examiners tell
participants whether their matches are right or wrong, without providing categories to
participants during sorting. Stability coefficients range between .39 and .72 (Heaton et al.,
1993). As a measure of shifting, we used the number of completed categories.
Trail Making Test (TMT; Reitan & Wolfson, 1992)

It consists of two parts, A and B. It enables to obtain a measure of sequencing, attention,
motor functioning, visual search and mental flexibility (Spreen & Strauss, 1998). Both
subtests record the time and number of errors. Comprising two forms, for TMT-A
participants must draw lines in a sequence connecting 15 encircled numbers that are
randomly dispersed. For TMT-B, participants are asked to alternate between numbers
and letters (e.g., 1 with A, 2 with B, and so on). Test-retest reliability coefficient ranges
from .60 to .90 (Spreen & Strauss, 1998). Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis
have shown that the task load on the Shifting factor of EF (Lehto et al., 2003). As
a measure of shifting, we considered the total time taken for Part B, minus total time
taken for Part A (i.e., B-A difference).
Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF) and Phonological Verbal Fluency (PVF) (FAS fluency
test; Benton & Hamsher, 1989)
Participants are asked to say as many words as possible for two categories (fruits and
animals) or starting with a specific letter (F, A and S) for 60 seconds. VF tasks have
standards for Spanish-speaking children (Arán Filippetti & Allegri, 2011; Ardila &
Rosselli, 1994). The score is the total number of correct words given for each subtask
(i.e., for SVF: total animals + total fruits and for PVF: total letter F + total letter A + total
letter S).
Five-point test (Regard, Strauss, & Knapp, 1982)

This paper-and-pencil test offers a measure of nonverbal fluency and cognitive flexibility.
It consists of 40 identical squares arranged in five columns and eight rows. Each square
contains five symmetrically organized dots. Participants have to produce as many
patterns as they can within three minutes by connecting two or more dots by means of
straight lines. The score was the total number of correct designs. Test-retest reliability
coefficient for this variable is .77 (Tucha, Aschenbrenner, Koerts, & Lange, 2012).
Working memory
Digit span and letter–Number sequencing sub tests of the WISC-IV (Wechsler, 2003)
It consists of two main sub tests: digits (D) that provides a measure of immediate oral
retention when assessed with digit forward (DF), and maintenance and manipulation of
information when using digit backwards (DB). Letters and numbers (LN) involves a set
of numbers and letters for participants to recall, order the numbers from lowest to
highest and arrange the letters alphabetically. The WISC IV has been standardized in
Argentina. The average internal consistency using the two-half method is .85 for LN, .82
for DF and .74 for DB. The test-retest reliability coefficient is .77 for LN, and .76 and .68
for DF and DB (Wechsler, 2010). Based on previous studies that suggested the analysis of
DF and DB tasks separately (Rosenthal, Riccio, Gsanger, & Pizzitola Jarratt, 2006), we
used both Digit Span tasks. DF would provide a measure of the phonological loop (i.e.,
component of the working memory model of Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) whereas DB
would impose higher demands on the executive system (Rosenthal et al., 2006).
A previous study indicated LN as a working memory task, since during its performance
the premotor cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and posterior
parietal cortex regions would be activated (Haut, Kuwabara, Leach, & Arias, 2000). The
score was the number of correct responses for each subtask.
Inhibition
Stroop color and word test (Golden, 1999)
It assesses the ability to control cognitive interference and the inhibition of automatic
verbal responses. It includes three response demands: (1) word reading, (b) color nam-
ing, and (c) color-word naming. The words “blue”, “red” and “green” are written in black
capital letters and arbitrarily arranged on the word condition sheet. The color naming
sheet includes elements (e.g., xxxx) equally organized but randomly printed in blue,
green or red. The color-word naming sheet involves the same group of words in the word
reading sheet but printed in the colors of the color naming sheet, and thus the colors do
not correspond to the printed word. Participant has to inhibit the reading of the word to
say the name of the color. The test-retest reliability for the word page, the color page and
the color-word page are .86, .82 and .73 respectively (Golden, 1975, cited in, 1999). The
color-word sheet score was used.
NEPSY knock and tap (Korkman, Kirk, & Kemp, 1998)

It assesses self-regulation and inhibition. Participants must suppress a motor action to
produce a conflicting motor response. The NEPSY battery has been studied in Spanish-
speaking children (Aguilar-Alonso, Torres-Viñals, & Aguilar-Mediavilla, 2014). Several
recent studies have used this task to assess the inhibition component of the executive system
in English (Pratt, Leonard, Adeyinka, & Hill, 2014) French (Mainville, Brisson, Nougarou,
Stipanicic, & Sirois, 2015) and Spanish (Aguilar-Alonso & Moreno-González, 2012)- speak-
ing children. The score was the total number of correct responses (maximum 30 points).
D2, attention test (Brickenkamp, 1962, Spanish adaptation by Seisdedos Cubero, 2004)
It is a measure of selective and sustain attention and processing speed by means of
a selective search of relevant stimuli. The internal consistency is high (r > .90), indepen-
dently of the statistic (two halves methods and odd-even) and the sample used
(Brickenkamp, 1962). We used TN - E variable, which offers a measure of attentional
and inhibitory control and represents the number of elements processed minus the total
number of errors made (omissions + commissions).
Intelligence
KBIT, Kaufman brief intelligence test (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2000)
It provides a measure of crystallized (Gc) and fluid (Gf) intelligence and involves two sub
tests: (a) vocabulary (verbal/crystallized/knowledge), which in turn includes two parts,
A and B to assess expressive vocabulary and definitions respectively, and (b) matrices
(manipulative/fluid/mental processing). Internal consistency examined through the two
halves method for the vocabulary and matrices sub tests are .98 and .97 respectively. The
test-retest stability coefficient is .94 for the vocabulary sub test and .86 for the matrices
sub test (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2000).
Reading and writing tasks

Reading comprehension subtest of ENI (Neuropsychological assessment of children)
Battery (Matute, Rosselli, Ardila, & Ostrosky-Solís, 2007)
ENI is a battery that allows a neuropsychological comprehensive evaluation in children
between the ages of 5 and 16 (Rosselli-Cock et al., 2004). In this study, we used the
reading comprehension subtest, where participants must read a text silently in order to
answer a series of questions about its content. The maximum score is 8 points.
PROESC, battery for the assessment of writing processes (Cuetos Vega, Ramos
Sánchez, & Ruano Hernández, 2004)
It assesses writing processes through content, coherence and organization of the written
text. In the present study, we used the subtask that assessed the writing of an expository
text. Content and coherence-style are both scored from 1 to 5 respectively (maximum 10
points). The alpha coefficient of the PROESC battery is .82 (Cuetos Vega et al., 2004).
Statistical procedures
Descriptive statistics for all cognitive tasks were calculated. CFA using the AMOS
Graphics 16.0 program (Arbuckle, 2007) was performed to test cognitive flexibility
models. Then, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to study different
theoretical models analyzing EF predictors of cognitive flexibility as well as cognitive
predictors of academic achievement. The goodness of fit level of the models was eval-
uated using χ2 statistic, Incremental Fit Index (IFI), Akaike’s Information Criterion
(AIC), the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) and the Root
Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). The CFI and GFI values range between
0 and 1, with those greater than .90 indicating an acceptable fit (Hu & Bentler, 1995,
1999). IFI values can be greater than 1.0. Finally, RMSEA is considered acceptable when
its values are under .08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). To test the multivariate normal distribu-
tion, Mardia’s coefficient was used (Mardia, 1970).
Results
Descriptive statistics
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and correlations among measures for the total sample.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

A two correlated factor and a one factor model were compared. CFI, GFI, IFI and AIC
indices and RMSEA were used to confirm the best fit model. The two-factor model
(Mardia’s coefficient = 2.687; critical ratio = 1.699) revealed and excellent fit as the χ2 was
not significant, CFI, GFI and IFI were higher than .90 and RMSEA was below .08. The
correlation between the two factors was high and significant (.87), so a one-factor model
10
Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations among cognitive measures.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1 DF -
2 DB .457** -
3 LNS .481** .577** -
4 Stroop .323** .378** .265** -
V. ARÁN FILIPPETTI AND G. KRUMM
5 KT .238* .311** .417** .065 -

6 IC .289** .402** .472** .528** .244** -
7 FPT .246** .379** .454** .354** .252** .297** -
8 PVF .295** .309** .312** .403** .209* .276** .385** -
9 SVF .227* .442** .492** .398** .252** .373** .461** .550** -
10 TMT A −.298** −.428** −.547** −.394** −.321** −.380** −.445** −.308** −.409** -
11 TMT B −.255** −.451** −.427** −.458** −.283** −.351** −.418** −.362** −.432** .646** -
12 TMT B-A −.088 −.237* −.107 −.273** −.105 −.145 −.179 −.219* −.228* .018 .775** -
13 CC-WCST .194* .235* .322** .220* .305** .126 .196* .216* .323** −.280** −.287** −.143 -
Mean 9.51 6.44 15.66 25.25 27.93 262.39 23.95 18.37 21.46 27.22 50.95 23.73 5.35
SD 2.38 1.68 3.28 6.47 1.89 88.47 7.78 7.23 5.66 9.76 15.45 11.79 1.21
Skewness .32 .39 −.68 .32 −1.57 .44 −.09 .23 −.05 .75 .68 .52 −2.03
Kurtosis −.72 −.43 −.16 −.39 4.04 .55 −.48 −.71 −.50 −.03 .35 .55 3.10
DF = Digit Forward; DB = Digit Backwards; LNS = Letter-number sequencing; KT = Knock and Tap; IC = Inhibitory control d2; FPT = Five Point Test; PVF = Phonological Verbal Fluency;
SVF = Semantic Verbal Fluency; TMT-A = Trail making test form A. TMT-B = Trail making test form B. TMT B-A = Trail making test B-A difference; CC-WCST = Number of complete categories of
the WSCT.
*p < .05.; **p < .01.
was assessed setting to 1 the correlation between the latent variables. The significant
delta-chi-square for the comparison between models 2 and 1 indicated that the model
with two correlated factors is significantly better than that with a single factor (see
Table 2). Figure 1 shows the final two-factor model.
Structural equation model

We first tested a model to analyze the joint contribution of WM and inhibition to reactive
and spontaneous flexibility. The model (Mardia’s coefficient = 6.152; critical ratio = 1.925)
presented an excellent adjustment (χ2 = 47.091, p = .148, CFI = .97, GFI = .93,
RMSEA = .04), showing that inhibition relates both with SF (.44; p = .022) and RF
(.61; p = .025) while WM relates with SF (.42; p = .029) but not with RF (.39; p = .120).
Then, a second model was tested to analyze the contribution of RF and SF to reading
comprehension (RC) and the writing of an expository text (WET), further including the
role of age. The model (Mardia’s coefficient = 2.383; critical ratio = 0.997) exhibited an
excellent adjustment (χ2 = 19.930, p = .175, CFI = .97, GFI = .96, RMSEA = .054) showing
Table 2. Fit indices for the two-factor model and reduced model.
Modelos χ2 df p CFI GFI IFI AIC RMSEA Δχ2a Δdf p
1. Two-factor model .651 4 .957 1.00 .99 1.03 22.65 .00
2. One-factor model 22.99 5 < .001 .78 .93 .79 42.99 .18 22.34 1 < .001
a
Comparisons are with the two-factor model. GFI and IFI values greater than .90, AIC low values and RMSEA values below
.08 are indicators of good adjustment.
Figure 1. Estimated cognitive flexibility two-factor model.

Figure 2. Structural equation model of CF as predictor of reading and writing.

Italic font indicates non-significant estimates
SF as the subtype of flexibility that eventually relates to both academic skills. Although
age predicted both types of flexibility, there were no direct effects of age on the academic
abilities under analyses (see Figure 2).
Conclusions for S1
The aims of study 1 were: (1) to examine the dimensionality of cognitive flexibility in
school-aged children, (2) to analyze the contribution of working memory and inhibition
to reactive and spontaneous flexibility and (3) to examine which specific cognitive
flexibility skill predicts academic performance.
First, CFA supported a two-factor model that included separated but related components:
(1) spontaneous flexibility and (2) reactive flexibility. Reactive flexibility was composed of the
WCST and TMT variables. WCST is a common test used to value reactive flexibility (Bonino
& Cattelino, 1999; Eslinger et al., 1999). Indeed, exploratory and confirmatory factor-analytic
(CFA) studies have shown that WCST taps the “shifting” component of EFs (Fisk & Sharp,
2004; Miyake et al., 2000) or a “cognitive flexibility” factor (Boone et al., 1998; Rodríguez-
Aranda & Sundet, 2006). TMT is another well-known measure of cognitive flexibility
(Anderson, 2001; Kortte, Horner, & Windham, 2002; Schiffer et al., 2010). Previous studies
in children have used this paradigm as a shifting measure (Agostino et al., 2010) in
consistency with findings of CFA studies that define it as part of the shifting factor (Arán
Filippetti & Richaud, 2017; Lehto et al., 2003). Thus, this factor would value the shifting ability
as a cognitive skill. On the contrary, spontaneous flexibility, conformed by tasks of verbal
fluency (Eslinger et al., 1999; Schiffer et al., 2010) and FPT, would reflect a subject’s ability to
generate diverse responses. These results support the idea that those tasks assessing cognitive
flexibility would impose demands on different sub-processes or cognitive abilities. Indeed, we
hypothesized that as reactive and spontaneous flexibility tasks imply flexible responses in the
presence of changing external contingencies and the production of diverse responses and
ideas respectively, each may imply different additional resources.
This led to our second aim entailing the analysis of the contribution of WM and inhibition
to reactive and spontaneous cognitive flexibility. According to our results, when considering
WM and inhibition together, both components contribute to SF. It has been suggested that
WM supports cognitive flexibility, as it would allow to maintain rules of novel tasks, guide
behavior (Blakey et al., 2016; Marcovitch, Boseovski, Knapp, & Kane, 2010) and switch
between conflicting rules (Blackwell, Cepeda, & Munakata, 2009). While WM allows to
maintain a mental set or perspective in mind, inhibition would enable to inhibit previously
activated ones (Diamond, 2016). This support the view that cognitive flexibility would be an
advanced EF that requires both WM and inhibition and would emerge later in development
(Chevalier et al., 2012; Diamond, 2016). Our results also confirmed the existing evidence that
inhibition and M-capacity (i.e., attentional core of working memory) would become basic
resources on which shifting draw (Agostino et al., 2010). However, it should be noted that
only inhibition contributes to RF. These findings suggest that inhibition may be the common
underlying cognitive ability associated with both flexibility components, while WM might be
linked to RF, possible through its shared variance with inhibition. Probably, the facts that RF
tasks require effective decision-making changes when external contingencies shift (i.e., with
a tangible component), and that SF tasks involve greater resourcefulness in producing new
ideas driven by internal stimuli might partially explain the differential demands on WM
capacity. These results raise the question whether SF could be considered as an advance
cognitive flexibility component that emerges from the interaction of other executive processes
(including shifting or reactive flexibility). This would be consistent with contemporary views
of cognitive flexibility that define it as an emerging property of effective executive functioning
(Dajani & Uddin, 2015; Ionescu, 2012), being shifting one of the mechanisms involved in
cognitive flexibility (Ionescu, 2012) together with WM and inhibition.
Finally, when examining the contribution of spontaneous and reactive flexibility to
academic skills, we found that only SF predicted reading and writing. These data offer
support to previous studies that have revealed there is an association between EF and
performance in different academic areas, including reading comprehension (Demagistri,
Richards, & Canet-Juric, 2014; Locascio, Mahone, Eason, & Cutting, 2010; Richard’s,
Canet-Juric, Introzzi, & Urquijo, 2014; Sesma, Mahone, Levine, Eason, & Cutting, 2009)
and writing (Altemeier et al., 2006; Arán Filippetti & Richaud, 2015). Thus, the fact that
verbal fluency implies access to the semantic and phonological lexicon (i.e., language
generation) could explain the association between spontaneous flexibility and writing
(Altemeier et al., 2006) and reading skills. However, as SF requires inhibition of auto-
matic responses (Slachevsky et al., 2005) and WM, it could be assumed that VF would not
be only associated with these academic skills due to its verbal nature, but also because of
the recruitment of these executive resources (i.e., inhibition and WM) during word
generation. This would explain why the non-verbal spontaneous flexibility task employed
in the present study (i.e., the FPT) does also predict reading and writing. Finally, the fact
that SF is closely connected to the concept of creativity (Ebersbach & Hagedorn, 2011)
could also explain its association with academic skills considering that the task used to
assess writing requires creativity (see Cuetos Vega et al., 2004). Overall, our data suggest
that flexible thinking and the production of diverse responses according to different goals
would be a fundamental skill for reading and writing academic success.
Taken together, results of this study raise the question whether RF could be considered
as a lower-level form of cognitive flexibility (see Dajani & Uddin, 2015) being SF
a higher-level form within a hierarchical model of cognitive flexibility.
Study 2 (S2)
As previously stated, study 2 aims at examining the contribution of spontaneous and reactive
flexibility to children’s creativity, further exploring whether WM and inhibition have either
direct effects on creativity or indirect ones through cognitive flexibility. We also intended to
test a final hierarchical model including WM, inhibition and shifting as predictors of
spontaneous flexibility (as an advance form of cognitive flexibility) and creativity.
Participants
The sample consisted of a total of 177 Spanish-speaking school children (105 girls and 72
boys) aged between 8 to 13 years (M = 9.94, SD = 1.24) living in Argentina. The inclusion
criteria were: (a) children without any clinical, neurological or psychiatric background,
(b) who attended school regularly, and (c) no school repetition. Prior to the administra-
tion of cognitive tasks, K-BIT test was used (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2000) in order to
assure that children performed within the normal range for their age group. Intellectual
functioning resulted within the range expected for children (M = 91.81; SD = 11.74).
Materials and procedures

School Heads attended an interview to receive detailed information on the investigation.
Parent or legal guardians’ permission and written consent was requested before assessment.
They got acquainted by note about research characteristics and assessment. It was made clear
that participation was voluntary and anonymous. According tasks characteristics, assessment
was carried out either collectively or individually throughout diverse meetings with partici-
pating children. Instructions of each test assessing creativity were followed effectively,
specifying the importance of giving novel, original, different and/or creative answers. As in
S1, the assessment was conducted by highly qualified specialists (i.e., neuropsychologists and
psychologists). The different tasks were administered in three sessions lasting approximately
40 minutes each. The sequence of the individual administration of tests was: (1) CREA,
(2) WM, (3) FPT, (4) VF, (5) Stroop, (6) K-BIT and (7) WCST. TTCT was collectively
administered in a last session. The instruments used for analysis are described below.
Creativity
The figural Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), form A
It comprises three activities lasting 10 minutes each, and posing different instructions to
elaborate drawing or complete figures. Overall, TTCT assesses fluency, originality,
elaboration, abstractness of titles and resistance to premature closure (Torrance, Ball, &
Safter, 1992). The TTCT test also measures thirteen criteria termed creative strength or
strong points of creativity: Emotional Expressiveness, Storytelling Articulateness,
Movement or Action, Expressiveness of Titles, Synthesis of Incomplete Figures, Synthesis
of Lines or Circles, Unusual Visualization, Internal Visualization, Extending or Breaking
Boundaries, Humor, wealth of Imagery, Colorfulness of Imagery, and Fantasy (Torrance
et al., 1992). With respect to construct validity, confirmatory factor analysis identified two
correlated factors, Innovation and Adaptation. Innovation is composed of the Fluency and
Originality skills, and Adaptation is composed of Elaboration, Resistance to premature
closure and Abstractness of title (Krumm, Arán Filippetti, Lemos, Koval, & Balabanian,
2016). The comprehensive score based on TTCT dimensions and creative strength was
used.
CREA, creative intelligence (Corbalán Berná et al., 2003)

The CREA assesses a subjects’ general disposition for openness and versatility of their
cognitive processes (Corbalán Berná et al., 2003). The test consists of three stimulus sheets
(A, B and C, depending on age) from which examinees must ask as many questions as possible
within four minutes. The test is administered individually or collectively and can be used since
age 6. In this work, CREA C was used for children and adolescents. Participants aged 8 and
9 years received it individually, and the rest collectively. The reliability study between forms
A and B calculated from the parallel model showed a feasibility of .87. Regarding validity,
CREA authors reported results of the concurrent validity study between CREA C and the
dimensions of Guilford’s Battery, finding correlations at p < .01, with the indicators Fluency,
Flexibility, Originality and Divergent Thinking (Corbalán Berná et al., 2003). Correlations
were also found between CREA and Fluency, Flexibility and Originality indicators of the first
version of the TTCT Figural (López Martínez & Navarro Lozano, 2008). A more recent study
on the psychometric properties of CREA, with adult students from an English-speaking
population has shown convergent validity between CREA and the Figural and Verbal
TTCT, being CREA considered as a divergent thinking measure (Clapham & King, 2010).
Finally, Krumm, Arán Filippetti, and Lemos (2018) found significant correlations (at p < .01)
in the range of .16 and .40 between CREA C and the indicators Fluency, Originality,
Elaboration, Resistance to premature closure of TTCT figural test, Form A (Torrance et al.,
1992) in a sample of Argentine children. The score is the total number of correct responses.
Executive functions
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)
See S1 for description.
Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF) and Phonological Verbal Fluency (PVF) (FAS fluency
test; Benton & Hamsher, 1989)
Five-point test (Regard et al., 1982)

Digit span and letter–number sequencing subtests of the WISC-IV (Wechsler, 2003)
Stroop color-word test (Golden, 1999)

Intelligence
KBIT, Kaufman brief intelligence test (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2000)
Statistics procedures
Descriptive statistics were calculated for each cognitive task. Hierarchical regression
analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between cognitive flexibility and
creativity, controlling for intelligence. Finally, we run SEM analysis including WM and
inhibition as predictors of cognitive flexibility and creativity by using standardized scores
on all measures. The goodness of fit level of the models was evaluated using χ2 statistic,
CFI, GFI and RMSEA. To test the multivariate normal distribution, Mardia’s coefficient
was used (Mardia, 1970). Analyses were performed with Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS) 22.0 for Windows and AMOS Graphics 16.0 program (Arbuckle, 2007).
Results
Descriptive statistics
Table 3 shows descriptive statistics and correlations among measures for the total sample.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics and correlations.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
1 DF -
2 DB .284** -
3 LNS .252** .290** -
4 Stroop .280** .291** .336** -
5 FPT .280** .304** .457** .339** -
6 PVF .320** .228** .406** .421** .483** -
7 SVF .375** .218** .389** .340** .452** .560** -
8 CC-WCST .155* .209* .285** .247** .092 .128 .109 -
9 TTCT .222** .110 .297** .386** .395** .392** .332** .174* -
10 CREA C .327** .146 .395** .368** .519** .542** .459** .174* .590** -
11 Gc .325** .085 .096 .243** .213** .364** .290** .210** .318** .404** -
12 Gf .213** .188* .142 .239** .310** .242** .152* .351** .274** .209** .376** -
Mean 7.85 6.66 16.03 27.50 21.44 18.99 24.80 3.51 19.41 7.99 93.86 96.18
SD 1.90 1.69 3.78 7.23 8.52 7.98 6.18 1.69 5.56 4.02 12.76 11.72
Skewness .64 .84 −1.41 .53 .42 .63 .26 −.04 .00 .93 .38 .09
Kurtosis 1.35 1.51 2.49 .25 −.57 .29 −.34 −.83 −.19 .44 .67 −.36
DF = Digit Forward; DB = Digit Backwards; LNS = Letter-number sequencing; FPT = Five Point Test; PVF = Phonological
Verbal Fluency; SVF = Semantic Verbal Fluency; CC-WCST = Number of complete categories of the WSCT;
Gc = Crystallized intelligence; Gf = Fluid intelligence
*p < .05.; **p < .01
Hierarchical regression analysis

The first hierarchical regression model that analyzes TTCT predictors included the
following blocks: (1) Gc and Gf, (2) reactive and spontaneous cognitive flexibility
measures. The total model explained 26% of the variance of TTCT. Specifically, Gc and
GF accounted for 13% of the variance, whereas spontaneous cognitive flexibility
accounted for 13% of the variance above and beyond the variance explained by intelli-
gence. In the final block, only spontaneous flexibility (verbal and nonverbal) was asso-
ciated with creativity (see Table 4). The second model that analyzes CREA predictors
included the following blocks: (1) Gc and Gf, (2) reactive and spontaneous cognitive
flexibility indicators. The total model explained 44% of the variance of CREA.
Specifically, Gc accounted for 17% of the variance, while spontaneous cognitive flexibility
explained 27% of the variance above and beyond the variance explained by Gc. In the
final block, both Gc and spontaneous flexibility (verbal and nonverbal) were associated
with creativity (see Table 4).
Structural equation model

We tested two models in order to analyze the joint contribution of WM, inhibition and
cognitive flexibility (reactive and spontaneous) to creativity. Model 1 (Mardia’s coeffi-
cient = 9.034; critical ratio = 3.879), which analyzes the contribution of spontaneous
and reactive flexibility, WM and inhibition to creativity exhibit an acceptable adjust-
ment, (χ2 = 70.548, df = 29, χ2/df = 2,433, p < .001, CFI = .91, GFI = .93, RMSEA = .09),
showing that inhibition relates with SF (.33; p < .001) and RF (.18; p = .015) but not
with creativity (−.01; p = .916). In turn, WM also relates with SF (.74; p < .001) and RF
(.23; p = .015), but not with creativity (−.27; p = .314). Besides, SF (.99; p = .001) but not
RF (.07; p = .317) related to creativity. Based on these findings, a second model was
tested to analyze both the direct contribution of RF, WM, and inhibition to SF and the
indirect effects of the former components to creativity. The model (Mardia’s
Table 4. Summary of hierarchical regressions for variables predicting creativity.

Dependent Predictor R2 ΔR2 β t p
TTCT Block 1 .13 .13
Gc .250 3.274 .001
Gf .180 2.356 .020
Block 2 .26 .13
Gc .147 1.947 .053
Gf .078 1.011 .314
VF .215 2.615 .010
FPT .219 2.736 .007
CC-WCST .067 0.943 .347
Block 1 .17 .17
Gc .379 5.074 <.001
Gf .067 0.899 .370
Block 2 .44 .27
CREA Gc .226 3.456 .001
Gf −.075 −1.125 .262
VF .327 4.585 <.001
FPT .313 4.501 <.001
CC-WCST .080 1.293 .198
TTCT = final creativity score in the TTCT figural test, Form A. CREA = final creativity score in CREA C. Gc = Crystallized
intelligence. Gf = Fluid intelligence. VF = Verbal Fluency. FPT = Five Point Test. CC-WCST = Number of complete
categories of the WSCT. N = 177.
Figure 3. Structural equation model predicting spontaneous flexibility and creativity.
coefficient = 9.034; critical ratio = 3.879) exhibited a good adjustment (χ2 = 66.948,
df = 31, χ2/df = 2,160, p < .001, CFI = .92, GFI = .94, RMSEA = .08) addressing SF as
the subtype of flexibility that eventually related to creativity in a hierarchical model
where shifting or RF is considered as a lower-level form of cognitive flexibility, which
also contributes to SF together with WM and inhibition (see Figure 3).
Conclusions for S2
In line with study 1, we found selective associations among cognitive flexibility compo-
nents and creativity, being SF, the skill related to creative thinking. First, results from
hierarchical regressions consistently showed that SF but not RF accounted for 13% of
TTCT variance when controlling for intelligence. Interestingly, both types of intelligence
predicted creativity assessed through TTCT in block 1, but intelligence did not predict it
in block 2 when including cognitive flexibility. These results suggest that SF would
mediate the relationship between intelligence and creativity when assessed through
TTCT. When analyzing the contribution of reactive and spontaneous flexibility to
CREA, it was found that SF explained 27% of CREA variance. In addition, it was
found that Gc -and not Gf- predicted creativity in block 1, and when including cognitive
flexibility in block 2, Gc still predicted creativity but to a lesser extent. Interestingly, the
percentage of variance explained by SF to creativity was higher when measuring with
CREA. These differences could result from the nature of the tasks. Although TTCT
assesses fluency based on the number of drawings produced, other indicators are also
evaluated in order to obtain creativity scores (i.e., originality, elaboration, abstractness of
title and resistance to premature closure). On the contrary, the fact that CREA assesses
creativity exclusively through the number of questions formulated about certain picture
might explain the stronger association between SF and the activity that CREA proposes.
To further explore the contribution of cognitive flexibility to creativity when con-
sidering it together with WM and inhibition, SEM techniques were conducted. Results
consistently showed that SF but not RF relates with creativity. Interestingly, when
examining whether WM and inhibition contribute to creativity, there were no direct
effects on creativity but indirect ones through SF. Thus, even when considering other EF
in the analyses, only SF turns out to be a significant predictor of creativity. These findings
are consistent with current models of creativity that postulate cognitive flexibility as
a central issue. For instance, the dual pathway to creativity model (DPCM, De Dreu,
Baas, & Nijstad, 2008) suggested that creative performance depends on (1) a persistence
pathway and (2) a flexibility pathway. The latter manifests itself in divergent thinking
through the use of cognitive categories and the switching among them. Similarly,
according to the Variability-Stability-Flexibility Pattern (Ionescu, 2017), during creative
or problem-solving processes, executive mechanisms (shifting, working memory and
inhibition) are used together with basic knowledge to change perspectives according to
task demands. In this sense, it is the state of flexibility that would enable foreseeing and
shifting ways of solving. Attempts have also been made to acknowledge creativity as an
EF component, such as in Barkley’s hybrid model (1997) where creativity and verbal
fluency are included in reconstitution. Thus, it seems that either current creativity models
or previous EF ones recognize the intrinsic relationship between such constructs.
However, according to our results, SF would be a higher-level form of cognitive flexibility
(different from shifting) through which other EF contribute to creativity. This might be
the result of the assessment of creativity through divergent thinking tests (e.g., TTCT),
where answers are first rated by the amount of relevant ideas (i.e., fluency) followed by
other indicators such as originality and elaboration. Therefore, it appears that this type of
tests would impose mainly demand on SF, either whether they prompt to make different
drawings with parallel lines or circles (TTCT) or to ask questions about a task (CREA).
Overall, our results are consistent with previous studies that have also found a positive
relationship between cognitive flexibility and creativity (Benedek et al., 2012; Gilhooly
et al., 2007; Pan & Yu, 2018) and propose spontaneous cognitive flexibility as the central
executive skill (Krumm et al., 2018) through which WM and intelligence contribute to
creativity (Lee & Therriault, 2013). These findings suggest that SF would be the main
predictor of creativity as measure by divergent thinking tasks, with intellectual abilities
also playing an important role, though in less magnitude. In this sense, creative people
would show greater flexibility without necessarily higher IQ (Hayes, 1989). In addition,
our findings extend Lee and Therriault’s (2013) work in young adults by considering also
inhibition and shifting as predictors of creativity. Taken together, our results raise the
question of whether divergent thinking tasks could be used, together with executive
measures of SF, as an interesting method to assess cognitive flexibility as a more advanced
function than shifting or reactive flexibility.
General discussion
Cognitive flexibility is considered a hallmark of human cognition (Deák, 2003; Ionescu,
2012), enabling people to adapt to new situations in response to changing demands, find
solutions to problems by the activation of their cognitive resources and pertinent
information according to environmental variables and, eventually, be creative. Greater
cognitive flexibility in children has been associated with better academic outcomes (Arán
Filippetti & Richaud, 2017), better social skills (Bonino & Cattelino, 1999), social under-
standing (Bock, Gallaway, & Hund, 2015) and greater creativity (Krumm et al., 2018).
Although previous studies have shown a dissociation between different types of flexibility
in adults (Eslinger & Grattan, 1993; Tomer et al., 2002), to our knowledge, no studies
have analyzed the dimensional nature of the construct, and its relationship with different
cognitive and academic abilities in children.
S1 first poses the question whether cognitive flexibility could be considered as
a general capacity or a dimensional construct with distinct components related to
capacities representing spontaneous and reactive flexibility. Consistent with our hypoth-
esis, a two-factor model with related but separable components provided the best fit to
data. These findings are in line with previous studies that suggest that cognitive flexibility
is not a globally coherent trait both in children (Deák & Wiseheart, 2015) and in adult
clinical samples (Eslinger & Grattan, 1993; Tomer et al., 2002). It has been argued that
different brain structures would contribute differently to neural substrates of cognitive
flexibility. In turn, the cortico striate system and the frontal lobe appears to mediate
reactive flexibility and spontaneous flexibility respectively (Eslinger & Grattan, 1993).
Furthermore, according to our results, flexibility subtypes would impose different
demands on executive processes. While inhibition is related to both RF and SF, WM
do only relates to SF. Results showing that WM contributes to flexibility are consistent
with previous research suggesting that WM contributes to performance on shifting tasks
as it would enable to maintain tasks goals (Marcovitch et al., 2010) and representations
(Cepeda & Munakata, 2007). However, our results indicate that SF tasks would impose
greater demand on WM than RF ones. This is consistent with previous studies that have
also found that the contribution of inhibition and WM to flexibility depends on the tasks
used to assess each construct (see e.g., Blakey et al., 2016; Chevalier et al., 2012). Results
showing that inhibition contributes to flexibility are consistent with studies reporting
that the ability to inhibit interfering responses play an important role in flexibility,
particularly in the ability to respond flexibly to messages and changing meanings
(Deák, 2003) and alternate between stimulus to successfully attain a task (Im-Bolter
et al., 2006). In turn, some inconsistencies among studies as regards the role of inhibition
on flexibility implies further discussion. For instance, although in children aged 2- and
3-years inhibition is related to the ability to switch in the presence of distracting

information (Blakey et al., 2016), there would not be a specific causal relationship
between inhibition and flexibility in 3-to-6-year-old children (Deák & Wiseheart, 2015;
Holt & Deák, 2015) and in young adults when measure with the WCST (Miyake et al.,
2000). Therefore, a possible explanation for discrepancies among studies may be that the
contribution of inhibition to flexibility is age-related. However, as different tasks have
been used across studies, the other feasible explanation may be that discrepancies are
caused by task measurement issues. Thus, it is important to stress that the contribution of
WM and inhibition to flexibility should always be interpreted according to age and tasks
analyzed, as distinct cognitive flexibility tasks would imply different responses demands.
This research finally addressed the need to determine as whether cognitive flexibility
components are selectively associated with reading comprehension and writing. In
examining the contribution of these components to academic skills through a latent
variable approach, we found that only SF predicts reading comprehension and writing.
These findings emphasize the importance of studying both cognitive flexibility compo-
nents when assessing its relationship with academic achievement.
In Study 2, we first analyzed the contribution of reactive and spontaneous flexibility to
creativity in children. While previous knowledge and intelligence may play some role in
creativity, recent evidence suggests that being creative mainly requires flexible thinking
or that creativity tasks (at least as measured by divergent thinking tasks) indeed taps
spontaneous flexibility. In fact, previous research has indicated that creative people
present higher levels of cognitive control flexibility (Zabelina & Robinson, 2010) and
that executive processes (as measured by flexibility tasks) underlie divergent thinking
(Beaty, Silvia, Nusbaum, Jauk, & Benedek, 2014; Lee & Therriault, 2013). However, as
from the EF paradigm two main subtypes of flexibility can be differentiated, this raise the
question whether a specific type of flexible ability is crucial to produce creative behaviors
or divergent thinking tasks could be an interesting approach to assess cognitive flexibility
(as different from shifting) in more real-life domains (or at least a different one). Our
results first show that only SF predicted creativity above and beyond the variance
explained by intelligence. Consistently, Kim and Zhong (2017) found that students are
more creative when they perform tasks with flat information structure (without higher
order categories) due to a high level of cognitive flexibility. However, as the relationship
between flexibility and creativity could depend on the task used, we analyze the con-
tribution of both subtypes of flexibility to different creativity tasks (i.e., figural and
verbal). Interestingly, our results indicate that SF relates to both verbal and figural
creativity tasks. Therefore, it seems that the higher is the spontaneous flexibility ability,
as measure by EF performance-based tasks, the more creative and proficient are children
in divergent thinking and academic tasks. These findings suggest that divergent thinking
tasks would be mainly assessing individuals’ spontaneous cognitive flexibility.
Nevertheless, besides assessing subjects’ cognitive flexibility, they should prioritize the
originality of responses. Thus, as in the case of metacognitive thinking and flexible
cognition (Deák, 2003), spontaneous flexibility and creative thinking should be partially
dissociated. However, at this point, it is also important to contemplate whether the
additional component of originality, that should be considered as a condition to char-
acterize a subject as creative, is accurate documented in the assessment of creativity as
valued with laboratory measures. This would be consistent with the findings of Benedek,
Jauk, Sommer, Arendasy, and Neubauer (2014) who did not find associations between
shifting and creativity when using a creativity rating that only reflects originality and
appropriateness of an idea (without including aspects of fluency or flexibility) and
a measure of shifting (reactive flexibility) that values the ability to switch between task
sets (switch cost). In the same vein, Pan and Yu (2018) found that shifting is associated
with the quantitative components of creative tasks (i.e., fluency and flexibility), but not
with qualitative aspects such as originality. Thus, it would seem that the contribution of
flexibility to creativity would depend, at least partially, on how creativity is evaluated, and
the specific component of flexibility considered under analysis (whether a shifting
component or a spontaneous one).
Second, to extend our S1 results suggesting that SF is a higher-level form of cognitive
flexibility, we tested two models including both flexibility components together with WM
and inhibition as predictors of creativity. First, and in line with S1, we found in model 1
that SF imposes greater demand on WM and inhibition than RF; this is consistent with
our hypothesis that SF would be a higher-level form of cognitive flexibility. In addition,
although WM and inhibition contribute to SF and RF, there was no a direct effect of these
executive dimensions on creativity, but an indirect effect through SF. These results are in
line with those of Lee and Therriault (2013) who also found that WM indirectly predicts
creativity through associative fluency. Interestingly, when testing our final model to
examine whether SF requires shifting ability (as suggested by Dajani & Uddin, 2015), we
found that while shifting, WM and inhibition contribute to SF, the latter would impose
greater demand on WM. These results beg the question whether SF tasks, in conjunction
with divergent thinking ones, could be considered as a valid method to measure cognitive
flexibility (in the field of EF) as a more advanced skill different from shifting (see e.g.,
Morra et al., 2018; Ionescu, 2012, so as not to consider cognitive flexibility and shifting
interchangeable). Future research would benefit from examining whether this might mean
an interesting approach to differentiate between SF from reactive one (or shifting) con-
sidering the former as a higher-level form of cognitive flexibility. This would be consistent
with the vision that proposes set-shifting as a mechanism involved in cognitive flexibility
(Ionescu, 2012) or as a lower form of cognitive flexibility (Dajani & Uddin, 2015).
Findings of this research have major implications for clinical and educational practice.
First, they stress the importance of considering both flexibility components when analyz-
ing its contribution to creativity and academic achievement, so as not to make the mistake
of assuming an absence of correlation when only one type of flexibility is considered (i.e.,
whether shifting or spontaneous flexibility). Therefore, to fully understand the construct of
cognitive flexibility in children, it is essential to considered different points of view and
a comprehensive assessment. On the one hand, it is necessary to examine how children
carry out laboratory tasks known as set shifting tasks (i.e., at a lower cognitive level) and SF
ones. Therefore, in this aspect, it is important not to lose sight of the need for different
tasks assessing individuals’ flexibility as a laboratory behavioral measurement, i.e., tasks
that assess producing responses and taking effective decisions-making changes when
external contingencies shift (i.e., reactive flexibility), and also that implying resourcefulness
in producing diverse responses, i.e., spontaneous flexibility, probably regarding it as
a different measure from shifting and as a more advance type of cognitive flexibility. On
the other hand, it is crucial to examine how children use their cognitive resources to
produce flexible behaviors in more real-life domains or during different activities that
require flexible thinking; for instance, on tasks of divergent thinking, but disregarding the
fact that they expose the subject to specific purposes, so they would not be strict measures
of real-life creativity. Probably, and considering that originality is considered a hallmark of
creativity (De Dreu, Nijstad, & Baas, 2011), the best way to value creativity is one that
effectively documents the subject’s originality and in every day behaviors, although with
the subjectivity that also implies assessing creativity acts (Hayes, 1989). Maybe as demon-
strated in the present study, writing tasks could also offer an approximation to children’s
spontaneous flexibility, including the assessment of their creativity process and imagina-
tion in a more real-domain (different from measures provided by divergent thinking
tasks). According to Brunner (1996, cited in Lindqvist, 2003), narrative is an important
way of educating, for learning implies creating meaning, and precisely through literature
(i.e., narratives), people can create and share their own world.
Our results also provide possible implications regarding education and training. First,
addressing what predominant aspect of flexibility has a greater effect on academic
performance could facilitate the differential diagnosis of learning difficulties at school
age. In addition, these data could guide the development of intervention strategies
attending to cognitive processes involved in writing and reading. School success relies
on flexibility and creativity (Diamond, 2016). Thus, childhood is an important period to
favor flexible thinking and develop creative potential by promoting the generation and
adaptation of original and new ideas and the resolution of everyday problems consider-
ing different perspectives. Thus, re-thinking a prospective, but not retrospective educa-
tion, guiding students to be creative when learning (Kozulin, 1993).
Limitations and future directions

This study contributes to the understanding of the nature of cognitive flexibility in
children. However, some limitations need to be addressed. S1 included only four tasks
to assess cognitive flexibility. Thus, future studies would benefit from using different
tasks that value abilities such as switching between tasks (i.e., cost switch) or those which
may differentiate between rule-switching flexibility and cue-induction flexibility (see e.g.,
Deák & Wiseheart, 2015) to analyze their selective association with different academic
skills and creativity. Another limitation was that the WM measures used, just involved
the storage and handling of verbal material (i.e., phonological loop and central executive
components). In addition, S2 only included a single task in order to measure inhibition
and shifting. Therefore, future research would benefit for the inclusion of a visuospatial
WM task together with other tasks to evaluate inhibition and shifting to further examine
whether the nature of the task could partly explain its influence on creativity. Finally, we
evaluated creativity by means of divergent thinking tasks. According to our results,
divergent thinking tests would mainly assess spontaneous flexibility, showing instead
difficulties for measuring originality. Although flexibility is a defining characteristic of
creative people, for it is opposed to rigidity and implies heterogeneity in the production
of ideas, originality is the unmistakable feature of uniqueness, related to the creation of
a product considered as a novelty, showing value and utility. According to Romo,
Alfonso-Benlliure, and Sanchez-Ruiz (2016), divergent thinking tasks do not consider
creative processes, hence ignoring the value and quality of creative products. Therefore,
an inappropriate idea could be taken as evidence of creativity (Zeng, Proctor, & Salvendy,
2011). In this line, Runco (2008) argues that this type of tests does not address the critical
and evaluative dimension of an idea. Thus, without disregarding divergent thinking tests
(no measure is perfect) it would be important to either complement CREA and TTCT
with other tests, or add indicators of functionality and appropriateness, as suggested by
Pan and Yu (2018). In addition, a whole creativity assessment requires considering
environmental, academic, familiar and social aspects (Romo et al., 2016), being further
contrasted with individuals’ real creative behaviors (Corbalán Berná et al., 2003).
Although TTCT Figural is a long-standing test, it would be interesting to review its
originality scoring system, in order to reflect this aspect rather than flexibility. In
addition, although the manual provides lists of those drawings that should not be
considered original, they should be updated according to time and cultural contexts. In
this sense, CREA is a clear interesting test for screening, but without actually assessing
originality, for it should not be used and considered a complete creativity measure, but
rather as a measure of flexibility or fluency (unless assessing each question within an
originality scoring system). Finally, any laboratory measure shows problems of external
validity. Thus, it is important to accurately acknowledge this limitation so as not to make
erroneous statements regarding the relationship between constructs, which could be due
to the scoring system or to what is actually being measured.
Acknowledgments
This work was financed by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET).
We are indebted to the schools and all the children who contributed to this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas.
References
Agostino, A., Johnson, J., & Pascual-Leone, J. (2010). Executive functions underlying multiplica-
tive reasoning: Problem type matters. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 105, 286–305.
Aguilar-Alonso, Á., & Moreno-González, V. (2012). Neuropsychological differences between
samples of dyslexic and reader children by means of NEPSY. The UB Journal of Psychology,
42, 35–50.
Aguilar-Alonso, Á., Torres-Viñals, M., & Aguilar-Mediavilla, E. M. (2014). The first Spanish
version of the NEPSY for the assessment of the neuropsychological development in a sample
of Spanish children. The UB Journal of Psychology, 44, 185–198.
Alloway, T. P., Gathercole, S. E., Willis, C., & Adams, A. M. (2004). A structural analysis of
working memory and related cognitive skills in young children. Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology, 87, 85–106.
Altemeier, L., Jones, J., Abbott, R. D., & Berninger, V. W. (2006). Executive functions in becoming
writing readers and reading writers: Note taking and report writing in third and fifth graders.
Developmental Neuropsychology, 29, 161–173.
Anderson, V. (2001). Assessing executive functions in children: Biological, psychological, and

developmental considerations. Pediatric Rehabilitation, 4(3), 119–136.
Arán Filippetti, V., & López, M. B. (2014). The role of executive functions in academic compe-
tences: An analytical review. In K. P. En Bennett (Ed.), Executive functioning. Role in early
learning processes, impairments in neurological disorders and impact of cognitive behavior
therapy (pp. 305–322). New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Arán Filippetti, V., & Allegri, R. F. (2011). Verbal fluency in Spanish-speaking children: Analysis
model according to task type, clustering, and switching strategies and performance over time.
The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 25, 413–436.
Arán Filippetti, V., & López, M. B. (2016). Predictores de la Comprensión Lectora en Niños
y Adolescentes: El papel de la Edad, el Sexo y las Funciones Ejecutivas. Cuadernos De
Neuropsicología, 10, 23–44.
Arán Filippetti, V., & Richaud, M. C. (2015). Do executive functions predict written composition?
Effects beyond age, verbal intelligence and reading comprehension. Acta Neuropsychologica, 13,
331–349.
Arán Filippetti, V., & Richaud, M. C. (2017). A structural equation modeling of executive
functions, IQ and mathematical skills in primary students: Differential effects on number
production, mental calculus and arithmetical problems. Child Neuropsychology, 23, 864–888.
Arbuckle, J. L. (2007). Amos 16.0 User’s Guide. Chicago: Amos Development Corporation.
Ardila, A., & Rosselli, M. (1994). Development of language, memory, and visuospatial abilities in
5- to 12-year-old children using a neuropsychological battery. Developmental Neuropsychology,
10, 97–120.
Atkinson, T. M., & Ryan, J. P. (2008). The use of variants of the trail making test in serial
assessment: A construct validity study. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 26(1), 42–53.
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. J. (1974). Working memory. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of
learning and motivation (pp. 47–90). New York: Academic Press.
Barkley, R. A. (1997). Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions:
Constructing a unifying theory of ADHD. Psychological Bulletin, 121(1), 65.
Beaty, R. E., Silvia, P. J., Nusbaum, E. C., Jauk, E., & Benedek, M. (2014). The roles of associative
and executive processes in creative cognition. Memory & Cognition, 42, 1186–1197.
Benedek, M., Franz, F., Heene, M., & Neubauer, A. C. (2012). Differential effects of cognitive
inhibition and intelligence on creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(4), 480–485.
Benedek, M., Jauk, E., Sommer, M., Arendasy, M., & Neubauer, A. C. (2014). Intelligence,
creativity, and cognitive control: The common and differential involvement of executive func-
tions in intelligence and creativity. Intelligence, 46, 73–83.
Benedek, M., Könen, T., & Neubauer, A. C. (2012). Associative abilities underlying creativity.
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 6(3), 273.
Benton, A. L., & Hamsher, K. (1989). Multilingual aphasia examination manual. Iowa City, IA:
AJA Associates.
Best, J. R., Miller, P. H., & Jones, L. L. (2009). Executive functions after age 5: Changes and
correlates. Developmental Review, 29(3), 180–200.
Blackwell, K. A., Cepeda, N. J., & Munakata, Y. (2009). When simple things are meaningful:
Working memory strength predicts children’s cognitive flexibility. Journal of Experimental
Child Psychology, 103, 241–249.
Blakey, E., Visser, I., & Carroll, D. J. (2016). Different executive functions support different kinds
of cognitive flexibility: Evidence from 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds. Child Development, 87, 513–526.
Bock, A. M., Gallaway, K. C., & Hund, A. M. (2015). Specifying links between executive function-
ing and theory of mind during middle childhood: Cognitive flexibility predicts social
understanding. Journal of Cognition and Development, 16, 509–521.
Bodimeade, H. L., Whittingham, K., Lloyd, O., & Boyd, R. N. (2013). Executive function in
children and adolescents with unilateral cerebral palsy. Developmental Medicine & Child
Neurology, 55(10), 926–933.
Bonino, S., & Cattelino. (1999). The relationship between cognitive abilities and social abilities in
childhood: A Research on flexibility in thinking and co-operation with peers. International
Journal of Behavioral Development, 23, 19–36.
Boone, K. B., Pontón, M. O., Gorsuch, R. L., González, J. J., & Miller, B. L. (1998). Factor analysis of
four measures of prefrontal lobe functioning. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 13, 585–595.
Brickenkamp, R. (1962). Aufmerksamkeits-Belastungs-test (Test d2) [The d2 test of attention] (1st
ed.). [Spanish adaptation by Seisdedos Cubero, N. (2004); 2nd ed., revised and expanded.
Madrid: TEA Ediciones]. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Brydges, C. R., Clunies-Ross, K., Clohessy, M., Lo, Z. L., Nguyen, A., Rousset, C., . . . Fox, A. M.
(2012). Dissociable components of cognitive control: An event-related potential (ERP) study of
response inhibition and interference suppression. PloS One, 7, e34482.
Bull, R., & Scerif, G. (2001). Executive functioning as a predictor of children’s mathematics ability:
Inhibition, switching, and working memory. Developmental Neuropsychology, 19, 273–293.
Carroll, D. J., Blakey, E., & FitzGibbon, L. (2016). Cognitive flexibility in young children: Beyond
perseveration. Child Development Perspectives, 10, 211–215.
Cepeda, N. J., & Munakata, Y. (2007). Why do children perseverate when they seem to know
better: Graded working memory or directed inhibition? Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 14,
1058–1065.
Chevalier, N., Sheffield, T. D., Nelson, J. M., Clark, C. A. C., Wiebe, S. A., & Espy, K. A. (2012).
Underpinnings of the costs of flexibility in preschool children: The roles of working memory
and inhibition. Developmental Neuropsychology, 37, 99–118.
Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Creativity: Shifting across ontological categories flexibly. In T. B. Ward,
S. M. Smith, & J. Vaid (Eds.), Creative thought. An investigation of conceptual structures and
processes (pp. 209–234). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/
10227-009
Clapham, M. M., & King, W. R. (2010). Psychometric characteristics of the CREA in an English
speaking population. Anales De Psicología/Annals of Psychology, 26, 206–211.
Cools, R., Brouwer, W. H., de Jong, R., & Slooff, C. (2000). Flexibility, inhibition, and planning:
Frontal dysfunctioning in schizophrenia. Brain and Cognition, 43(1–3), 108–112.
Corbalán Berná, J., Martínez Zaragoza, F., Donolo, D., Alonso Monreal, C., Tejerina Arreal, M., &
Limiñana Gras, R. M. (2003). CREA. Inteligencia creativa. Una medida cognitiva de la creativi-
dad. España: TEA ediciones.
Costantini, A. F., & Hoving, K. L. (1973). The relationship of cognitive and motor response
inhibition to age and IQ. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 123, 309–319.
Cragg, L., & Chevalier, N. (2012). The processes underlying flexibility in childhood. The Quarterly
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(2), 209–232.
Cuetos Vega, F., Ramos Sánchez, J. L., & Ruano Hernández, E. (2004). PROESC. Evaluación de los
procesos de escritura. Madrid: TEA ediciones.
Dajani, D. R., & Uddin, L. Q. (2015). Demystifying cognitive flexibility: Implications for clinical
and developmental neuroscience. Trends in Neurosciences, 38, 571–578.
De Dreu, C. K. D., Nijstad, B. A., & Baas, M. (2011). Behavioral activation links to creativity
because of increased cognitive flexibility. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(1),
72–80.
De Dreu, C. K. W., Baas, M., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). Hedonic tone and activation in the mood–
Creativity link: Towards a dual pathway to creativity model. Journal of Personality and Social
Deák, G. O. (2003). The development of cognitive flexibility and language abilities. In R. Kail
(Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (Vol. 31, pp. 273–328). San Diego:
Academic Press.
Deák, G. O., & Wiseheart, M. (2015). Cognitive flexibility in young children: General or
task-specific capacity? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 138, 31–53.
Demagistri, M. S., Richards, M. M., & Canet-Juric, L. (2014). Incidencia del Funcionamiento
Ejecutivo en el Rendimiento en Comprensión Lectora en Adolescentes. Electronic Journal of
Research in Educational Psychology, 12, 343–370.
Diamond, A. (2006). The early development of executive functions. In E. Bialystok & F. Craik
(Eds.), Lifespan cognition: Mechanisms of change (pp. 70–95). New York, NY: Oxford University
Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195169539.003.0006
Diamond, A. (2016). Why improving and assessing executive functions early in life is critical. In J.
A. Griffin, P. McCardle, & L. S. Freund (Eds.), Executive function in pre-school age children:
Integrating measurement, neurodevelopment, and translational research. Washington, DC: APA.
doi:10.1037/14797-002
Duan, X., Wei, S., Wang, G., & Shi, J. (2010). The relationship between executive functions and
intelligence on 11-to 12-year-old children. Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling, 52(4), 419.
Ebersbach, M., & Hagedorn, H. (2011). The role of cognitive flexibility in the spatial representation
of children’s drawings. Journal of Cognition and Development, 12, 32–55.
Engel de Abreu, P. M., Abreu, N., Nikaedo, C. C., Puglisi, M. L., Tourinho, C. J.,
Miranda, M. C., . . . Martin, R. (2014). Executive functioning and reading achievement in school:
A study of Brazilian children assessed by their teachers as “poor readers”. Frontiers in
Psychology, 5, 550.
Eslinger, P. J., Biddle, K., Pennington, B., & Page, R. B. (1999). Cognitive and behavioral devel-
opment up to 4 years after early right frontal lobe lesion. Developmental Neuropsychology, 15,
157–191.
Eslinger, P. J., & Grattan, L. M. (1993). Frontal lobe and frontal-striatal substrates for different
forms of human cognitive flexibility. Neuropsychologia, 31, 17–28.
Espy, K. A., McDiarmid, M. M., Cwik, M. F., Stalets, M. M., Hamby, A., & Senn, T. E. (2004). The
contribution of executive functions to emergent mathematic skills in preschool children.
Developmental Neuropsychology, 26, 465–486.
Fenesy, M. C., & Lee, S. S. (2018). Executive functioning mediates predictions of youth academic
and social development from parenting behavior. Developmental Neuropsychology, 43(8),
729–750.
Fisk, J. E., & Sharp, C. A. (2004). Age-related impairment in executive functioning: Updating,
inhibition, shifting, and access. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 26,
874–890.
Gathercole, S. E., Pickering, S. J., Ambridge, B., & Wearing, H. (2004). The structure of working
memory from 4 to 15 years of age. Developmental Psychology, 40, 177–190.
Gilhooly, K. J., Fioratou, E., Anthony, S. H., & Wynn, V. (2007). Divergent thinking: Strategies and
executive involvement in generating novel uses for familiar objects. British Journal of
Golden, C. J. (1975). The measurement of creativity by the Stroop color and word test. Journal of
Personality Assessment, 39, 502–506.
Golden, C. J. (1999). Stroop, Test de Colores y Palabras. Madrid: TEA Ediciones.
Greve, K. W., Stickle, T. R., Love, J. M., Bianchini, K. J., & Stanford, M. S. (2005). Latent structure
of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: A confirmatory factor analytic study. Archives of Clinical
Neuropsychology, 20, 355–364.
Gyurak, A., Goodkind, M. S., Madan, A., Kramer, J. H., Miller, B. L., & Levenson, R. W. (2009). Do
tests of executive functioning predict ability to downregulate emotions spontaneously and when
instructed to suppress? Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 9(2), 144–152.
Haut, M. W., Kuwabara, H., Leach, S., & Arias, R. G. (2000). Neural activation during performance
of number–Letter sequencing. Applied Neuropsychology: Adult, 7, 237–242.
Hayes, J. R. (1989). Cognitive Processes in Creativity. In J. A. Glove, R. R. Ronnin, & C. R. Reynold
(Eds.), Handbook of Creativity (pp. 135–145). Boston, MA: Plenum Press, Springer. doi:10.1007/
978-1-4757-5356-
Heaton, R. K., Chelune, G. J., Talley, J. L., Kay, G. G., & Curtiss, G. (1993). Wisconsin card sorting
test (WCST). [Spanish adaptation by de la Cruz López, M. V. (1997). Madrid: TEA Ediciones].
Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Henry, J. D., & Crawford, J. R. (2004). A meta-analytic review of verbal fluency performance
following focal cortical lesions. Neuropsychology, 18, 284–295.
Holt, A. E., & Deák, G. O. (2015). Children’s task-switching efficiency: Missing our cue? Journal of
Cognition and Development, 16, 261–285.
Hooper, S. R., Swartz, C. W., Wakely, M. B., de Kruif, R. E., & Montgomery, J. W. (2002).
Executive functions in elementary school children with and without problems in written
expression. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35, 57–68.
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1995). Evaluating model fit. In R. H. Hoyle (Ed.), Structural equation
modeling: Concepts, issues, and applications (pp. 76–99). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis:
Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary
Journal, 6, 1–55.
Hughes, C. (2011). Changes and challenges in 20 years of research into the development of
executive functions. Infant and Child Development, 20(3), 251–271.
Huizinga, M., Dolan, C. V., & van der Molen, M. W. (2006). Age-related change in executive
function: Developmental trends and a latent variable analysis. Neuropsychologia, 44(11),
2017–2036.
Hurks, P. P., Schrans, D., Meijs, C., Wassenberg, R., Feron, F. J. M., & Jolles, J. (2010).
Developmental changes in semantic verbal fluency: Analyses of word productivity as
a function of time, clustering, and switching. Child Neuropsychology, 16(4), 366–387.
Im-Bolter, N., Johnson, J., & Pascual-Leone, J. (2006). Processing limitations in children with
specific language impairment: The role of executive function. Child Development, 77(6),
1822–1841.
Ionescu, T. (2012). Exploring the nature of cognitive flexibility. New Ideas in Psychology, 30,
190–200.
Ionescu, T. (2017). When is a cognitive system flexible? The variability–stability–flexibility pattern
on the way to novel solutions. AVANT. Pismo Awangardy Filozoficzno-Naukowej, S, 255–264.
Jacobson, L. A., Williford, A. P., & Pianta, R. C. (2011). The role of executive function in children’s
competent adjustment to middle school. Child Neuropsychology, 17, 255–280.
Kaufman, A. S., & Kaufman, N. L. (2000). K-BIT. Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test. [Spanish
adaptation by Cordero A. & Calonge, I. Madrid: TEA Ediciones]. Circle Pines, MN:
American Guidance Service.
Kim, Y. J., & Zhong, C. B. (2017). Ideas rise from chaos: Information structure and creativity.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 138, 15–27.
Klenberg, L., Korkman, M., & Lahti-Nuuttila, P. (2001). Differential development of attention and
executive functions in 3-to 12-year-old Finnish children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 20
(1), 407–428.
Korkman, M., Kemp, S. L., & Kirk, U. (2001). Effects of age on neurocognitive measures of
children ages 5 to 12: A cross-sectional study on 800 children from the United States.
Developmental Neuropsychology, 20(1), 331–354.
Korkman, M., Kirk, U., & Kemp, S. L. (1998). NEPSY. A Developmental Neuropsychological
Assessment. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
Kortte, K. B., Horner, M. D., & Windham, W. K. (2002). The trail making test, part B: Cognitive
flexibility or ability to maintain set? Applied Neuropsychology, 9, 106–109.
Kozulin, A. (1993). Literature as a psychological tool. Educational Psychologist, 28(3), 253–264.
Krumm, G., Arán Filippetti, V., & Lemos, V. (2018). Correlates between two measures to assess
creativity in Argentine children: CREA and TTCT. In J. C. Penagos Corzo & M. A. Padilla
Vargas (Eds.), Challenges in creativity & psychology for the XXI century (pp. 46–60). México:
Fundación de las Américas, Puebla.
Krumm, G., Arán Filippetti, V., & Gutierrez, M. (2018). The contribution of Executive Functions
to Creativity in Children: What is the role of Crystallized and Fluid Intelligence? Thinking Skills
and Creativity, 29, 185–195.
Krumm, G., Arán Filippetti, V., Lemos, V., Koval, J., & Balabanian, C. (2016). Construct validity
and factorial invariance across sex of the torrance test of creative thinking–figural form A in
Spanish-speaking children. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 22, 180–189.
Lee, C. S., & Therriault, D. J. (2013). The cognitive underpinnings of creative thought: A latent
variable analysis exploring the roles of intelligence and working memory in three creative
thinking processes. Intelligence, 41(5), 306–320.
Lehto, J. E., Juujärvi, P., Kooistra, L., & Pulkkinen, L. (2003). Dimensions of executive functioning:
Evidence from children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 59–80.
Lezak, M. D., Howieson, D. B., Loring, D. W., & Fischer, J. S. (2004). Neuropsychological assess-
ment. USA: Oxford University Press.
Lindqvist, G. (2003). Vygotsky’s theory of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 15(2–3),
245–251.
Locascio, G., Mahone, E. M., Eason, S., & Cutting, L. (2010). Executive dysfunction among
children with reading comprehension deficits. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43, 441–454.
López Martínez, O., & Navarro Lozano, J. (2008). Estudio comparativo entre medidas de creati-
vidad: TTCT vs. CREA. Anales De Psicología, 24, 138–142.
Mainville, M., Brisson, J., Nougarou, F., Stipanicic, A., & Sirois, S. (2015). Inhibition development:
Comparison of neuropsychological and eye tracking measures. Revista Argentina De Ciencias
Del Comportamiento, 7, 17–25.
Marcovitch, S., Boseovski, J. J., Knapp, R. J., & Kane, M. J. (2010). Goal neglect and working
memory capacity in 4-to 6-year-old children. Child Development, 81, 1687–1695.
Mardia, K. V. (1970). Measures of multivariate skewness and kurtosis with applications.
Biometrika, 57, 519–530.
Matute, E., Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., & Morales, G. (2004). Verbal and nonverbal fluency in
Spanish-speaking children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26(2), 647–660.
Matute, E., Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., & Ostrosky-Solís, F. (2007). Evaluación neuropsicológica
infantil (ENI). México: Manual Moderno.
Maylor, E. A., Moulson, J. M., Muncer, A. M., & Taylor, L. A. (2002). Does performance on theory
of mind tasks decline in old age? British Journal of Psychology, 93(4), 465–485.
Messer, D., Bernardi, M., Botting, N., Hill, E. L., Nash, G., Leonard, H. C., & Henry, L. A. (2018).
An exploration of the factor structure of executive functioning in children. Frontiers in
Psychology, 9, 1179.
Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000).
The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “Frontal
Lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49–100.
Monette, S., Bigras, M., & Guay, M. C. (2011). The role of the executive functions in school
achievement at the end of Grade 1. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 109(2), 158–173.
Monette, S., Bigras, M., & Lafrenière, M. A. (2015). Structure of executive functions in typically
developing kindergarteners. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 140, 120–139.
Morra, S., Bisagno, E., Caviola, S., Delfante, C., & Mammarella, I. C. (2019). Working memory
capacity and the development of quantitative central conceptual structures. Cognition and
Instruction, 37(4), 483–511.
Morra, S., Panesi, S., Traverso, L., & Usai, M. C. (2018). Which tasks measure what? Reflections on
executive function development and a commentary on Podjarny, Kamawar, and Andrews
(2017). Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 167, 246–258.
Nayfeld, I., Fuccillo, J., & Greenfield, D. B. (2013). Executive functions in early learning: Extending
the relationship between executive functions and school readiness to science. Learning and
Individual Differences, 26, 81–88.
Nusbaum, E. C., & Silvia, P. J. (2011). Are intelligence and creativity really so different? Fluid
intelligence, executive processes, and strategy use in divergent thinking. Intelligence, 39,
36–45.
Pan, X., & Yu, H. (2018). Different effects of cognitive shifting and intelligence on creativity. The
Journal of Creative Behavior, 52, 212–225.
Parkin, A. J., & Lawrence, A. (1994). A dissociation in the relation between memory tasks and
frontal lobe tests in the normal elderly. Neuropsychologia, 32(12), 1523–1532.
Pozzetti, T., Ometto, A., Gangi, S., Picciolini, O., Presezzi, G., Gardon, L., . . . Marzocchi, G. M.
(2014). Emerging executive skills in very preterm children at 2 years corrected age: A composite
assessment. Child Neuropsychology, 20(2), 145–161.
Pratt, M. L., Leonard, H. C., Adeyinka, H., & Hill, E. L. (2014). The effect of motor load on
planning and inhibition in developmental coordination disorder. Research in Developmental
Disabilities, 35, 1579–1587.
Regard, M. (1981). Cognitive rigidity and flexibility. A neuropsychological study (Unpublished PhD
dissertation). University of Victoria, British Columbia.
Regard, M., Strauss, E., & Knapp, P. (1982). Children’s production on verbal and non-verbal
fluency tasks. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 55, 839–844.
Reitan, R. M., & Wolfson, D. (1992). Neuropsychological evaluation of older children. Tucson, AZ:
Neuropsychology Press.
Richard’s, M., Canet-Juric, L., Introzzi, I., & Urquijo, S. (2014). Intervención diferencial de las
funciones ejecutivas en inferencias elaborativas y puente. Avances En Psicología
Latinoamericana, 32, 5–20.
Rodríguez-Aranda, C., & Sundet, K. (2006). The frontal hypothesis of cognitive aging: Factor
structure and age effects on four frontal tests among healthy individuals. The Journal of Genetic
Romo, M., Alfonso-Benlliure, V., & Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J. (2016). El test de creatividad infantil
(TCI): Evaluando la creatividad mediante una tarea de encontrar problemas. Psicología
Educativa, 22, 93–101.
Rose, S. A., Feldman, J. F., & Jankowski, J. J. (2012). Implications of infant cognition for executive
functions at age 11. Psychological Science, 23(11), 1345–1355.
Rosenthal, E. N., Riccio, C. A., Gsanger, K. M., & Pizzitola Jarratt, K. (2006). Digit Span
components as predictors of attention problems and executive functioning in children.
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 21, 131–139.
Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., Matute, E., & Inozemtseva, O. (2009). Gender differences and cognitive
correlates of mathematical skills in school-aged children. Child Neuropsychology, 15, 216–231.
Rosselli-Cock, M., Matute-Villaseñor, E., Ardila-Ardila, A., Botero-Gómez, V. E., Tangarife-
Salazar, G. A., Echeverría-Pulido, S. E., & Ocampo-Agudelo, P. (2004). Evaluación
Neuropsicológica Infantil (ENI): Una batería para la evaluación de niños entre 5 y 16 años de
edad. Estudio normativo colombiano. Revista De Neurología, 38(8), 720–731.
Roy, A., Barbarot, S., Roulin, J. L., Charbonnier, V., Fasotti, L., Stalder, J. F., & Le Gall, D. (2014). Is
executive function specifically impaired in children with neurofibromatosis type 1?
A neuropsychological investigation of cognitive flexibility. Applied Neuropsychology: Child, 3
(2), 94–102.
Runco, M. A. (2008). Commentary: Divergent thinking is not synonymous with creativity.
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Art, 2, 93–96.
Schiffer, B., Müller, B. W., Scherbaum, N., Forsting, M., Wiltfang, J., Leygraf, N., & Gizewski, E. R.
(2010). Impulsivity-related brain volume deficits in schizophrenia-addiction comorbidity.
Brain, 133(10), 3093–3103.
Sesma, H. W., Mahone, E. M., Levine, T., Eason, S. H., & Cutting, L. E. (2009). The contribution of
executive skills to reading comprehension. Child Neuropsychology, 15, 232–246.
Shaul, S., & Schwartz, M. (2014). The role of the executive functions in school readiness among
preschool-age children. Reading and Writing, 27, 749–768.
Slachevsky, A., Pérez, C., Silva, J., Orellana, G., Prenafeta, M. L., Alegria, P., & Peña, G. (2005).
Córtex prefrontal y trastornos del comportamiento: Modelos explicativos y métodos de
evaluación. Revista Chilena De Neuropsiquiatría, 43, 109–121.
Spreen, O., & Strauss, E. (1998). A compendium of neuropsychological test: Administration, norms
and commentary (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
St Clair-Thompson, H. L., & Gathercole, S. E. (2006). Executive functions and achievements in
school: Shifting, updating, inhibition, and working memory. The Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, 59, 745–759.
Theodoraki, T. E., McGeown, S. P., Rhodes, S. M., & MacPherson, S. E. (2019). Developmental
changes in executive functions during adolescence: A study of inhibition, shifting, and working
memory. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. doi:10.1111/bjdp.12307
Thorell, L. B., Veleiro, A., Siu, A. F., & Mohammadi, H. (2013). Examining the relation between
ratings of executive functioning and academic achievement: Findings from a cross-cultural
study. Child Neuropsychology, 19, 630–638.
Tiego, J., Testa, R., Bellgrove, M. A., Pantelis, C., & Whittle, S. (2018). A hierarchical model of
inhibitory control. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1339.
Tirapu Ustárroz, J., Bausela Herreras, E., & Cordero Andrés, P. (2018). Modelo de funciones
ejecutivas basado en análisis factoriales en población infantil y escolar: Metaanálisis. Revista De
Neurología, 67(6), 215–225.
Tirapu-Ustárroz, J., Cordero-Andrés, P., & Basuela-Herreras, E. (2018). Funciones ejecutivas en
población infantil: Propuesta de una clarificación conceptual e integradora basada en resultado
de análisis factoriales. Cuadernos De Neuropsicología/Panamerican Journal of Neuropsychology,
12(3). doi:10.7714/CNPS/12.3.203
Tomer, R., Fisher, T., Giladi, N., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2002). Dissociation between spontaneous
and reactive flexibility in early Parkinson’s disease. Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, 15,
106–112.
Torrance, P., Ball, O., & Safter, H. T. (1992). Torrance test of creative thinking. Streamlined scoring
guide figural A and B. Bensenville, Illinois: Scholastic Testing Service.
Tucha, L., Aschenbrenner, S., Koerts, J., & Lange, K. W. (2012). The five-point test: Reliability,
validity and normative data for children and adults. PloS One, 7, e46080.
van der Sluis, S., de Jong, P. F., & van der Leij, A. (2004). Inhibition and shifting in children with
learning deficits in arithmetic and reading. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87(3),
239–266.
van der Sluis, S., de Jong, P. F., & van der Leij, A. (2007). Executive functioning in children, and its
relations with reasoning, reading, and arithmetic. Intelligence, 35, 427–449.
van der Ven, S. H., Kroesbergen, E. H., Boom, J., & Leseman, P. P. (2013). The structure of
executive functions in children: A closer examination of inhibition, shifting, and updating.
British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 70–87.
Viterbori, P., Usai, M. C., Traverso, L., & De Franchis, V. (2015). How preschool executive
functioning predicts several aspects of math achievement in grades 1 and 3: A longitudinal
study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 140, 38–55.
Vuontela, V., Steenari, M. R., Carlson, S., Koivisto, J., Fjällberg, M., & Aronen, E. T. (2003).
Audiospatial and visuospatial working memory in 6–13 year old school children. Learning &
Memory, 10(1), 74–81.
Wechsler, D. (2003). Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fourth edition (WISC-IV). [Spanish
adaptation (2005), Madrid: TEA Ediciones]. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.
Wechsler, D. (2010). WISC IV, Escala de Inteligencia para niños de Wechsler – IV. Adaptación
Argentina. Buenos Aires: Paidos.
Willoughby, M., & Blair, C. (2011). Test-retest reliability of a new executive function battery for
use in early childhood. Child Neuropsychology, 17(6), 564–579.
Wu, K. K., Chan, S. K., Leung, P. W., Liu, W. S., Leung, F. L., & Ng, R. (2011). Components and
developmental differences of executive functioning for school-aged children. Developmental
Neuropsychology, 36(3), 319–337.
Yeniad, N., Malda, M., Mesman, J., Van Ijzendoorn, M. H., & Pieper, S. (2013). Shifting ability
predicts math and reading performance in children: A meta-analytical study. Learning and
Individual Differences, 23, 1–9.
Zabelina, D. L., & Robinson, M. D. (2010). Creativity as flexible cognitive control. Psychology of
Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4, 136–143.
Zeng, L., Proctor, R. W., & Salvendy, G. (2011). Can traditional divergent thinking tests be trusted
in measuring and predicting real-world creativity? Creativity Research Journal, 23, 24–37.

A Hierarchical Model of Cognitive Flexibility in Children: Extending The Relationship Between Flexibility, Creativity and Academic Achievement

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

A Hierarchical Model of Cognitive Flexibility in Children: Extending The Relationship Between Flexibility, Creativity and Academic Achievement

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Hierarchical Model of Cognitive Flexibility in Children: Extending The Relationship Between Flexibility, Creativity and Academic Achievement

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Child Neuropsychology

A Journal on Normal and Abnormal Development in Childhood and

ISSN: 0929-7049 (Print) 1744-4136 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ncny20

A hierarchical model of cognitive flexibility in

Vanessa Arán Filippetti & Gabriela Krumm

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2019.1711034

Published online: 08 Jan 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

A hierarchical model of cognitive ﬂexibility in children:

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

CONTACT Vanessa Arán Filippetti vanessaaranf@gmail.com Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en

partially depend on WM capacity in children (Tiego, Testa, Bellgrove, Pantelis, &

Previous studies on cognitive ﬂexibility in children: About the diﬀerent subtypes

Cognitive ﬂexibility, creativity and academic achievement

The present study

Based on previous theoretical and empirical background, we hypothesized that cognitive

Materials and procedures

Reactive and spontaneous ﬂexibility

Trail Making Test (TMT; Reitan & Wolfson, 1992)

Five-point test (Regard, Strauss, & Knapp, 1982)

NEPSY knock and tap (Korkman, Kirk, & Kemp, 1998)

Reading and writing tasks

Conﬁrmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations among cognitive measures.

5 KT .238* .311** .417** .065 -

Structural equation model

Figure 1. Estimated cognitive ﬂexibility two-factor model.

Figure 2. Structural equation model of CF as predictor of reading and writing.

Materials and procedures

CREA, creative intelligence (Corbalán Berná et al., 2003)

Five-point test (Regard et al., 1982)

Stroop color-word test (Golden, 1999)

Table 3. Descriptive statistics and correlations.

Hierarchical regression analysis

Structural equation model

Table 4. Summary of hierarchical regressions for variables predicting creativity.

Figure 3. Structural equation model predicting spontaneous ﬂexibility and creativity.

3-years inhibition is related to the ability to switch in the presence of distracting

Limitations and future directions

Anderson, V. (2001). Assessing executive functions in children: Biological, psychological, and

You might also like

5 KT .238* .311 .417 .065 -