Development of an aspect of executive control: Development of the abilities to remember what I said and to ?Do as I say, not as I do?

TLDR

The tapping task tests dual rule maintenance and response inhibition, skills that develop between ages 3–6 and likely reflect frontal cortex maturation. The study used Luria's tapping test on 160 children aged 3½–7 years and compared results to a day‑night Stroop‑like task. Older children performed faster and more accurately, with most improvement by age 6; younger children showed declining accuracy over trials and struggled to sustain performance, with common errors including partial rule compliance and over‑tapping. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Abstract

Luria's tapping test (tap once when E taps twice, tap twice when E taps once) was administered to 160 children (80 males, 80 females) between 31/2 to 7 years old. Older children were faster and more accurate than younger children, with most of the improvement occurring by the age of 6. All children tested demonstrated understanding of the instructions during the pretest, and most started out performing well, but younger subjects could not sustain this. Over the 16 trials, percentage of correct responses decreased, especially among younger subjects. Performance here was compared with performance on the day-night Stroop-like task. The most common error on both tasks was to comply with only one of the two rules. Other errors included tapping many times regardless of what the experimenter did and doing the same thing as the experimenter, rather than the opposite. It is suggested that the tapping task requires both the ability to hold two rules in mind and the ability to inhibit a strong response tendency, that these abilities improve between 3–6 years of age, and that this improvement may reflect important changes within frontal cortex during this period of life. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.