Household stress moderates the association between caregiver metacognition and emotional control and infant sustained attention.

Previous work has shown that caregiver executive functions (EFs) are robustly linked to EFs in children. However, existing evidence has used mixed methods approaches combining questionnaires and experimental tasks. The current study used contextually similar questionnaires to examine whether EFs in caregivers would be associated with EFs in their infants, and whether household stress and socioeconomic status moderated significant associations. 91 families living in the Midlands region of the United Kingdom participated in the study. Caregiver EFs were assessed using the behaviour rating inventory of executive functions and infant EFs were assessed using the early executive functions questionnaires. Caregivers were also asked to fill in questionnaires to provide information on household stress and socioeconomic status. Our results showed that better metacognition and emotional control in caregivers was associated with better sustained attention and persistence and regulation in infants. Household stress moderated the association between caregiver metacognition and emotional control and infant sustained attention, with the strongest effects observed in families with lower stress levels. Our findings contribute to the understanding of early associations between caregiver and child EFs.