The Effectiveness of Executive Function Based Parenting Education on Children’s Cognitive Flexibility and Inhibitory Control

this study was done to determine the effectiveness of executive function based parenting education program on cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control of preschool children. The research was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest–follow–up and a control group design. The statistical population consisted of approximately 8400 mothers with sons aged 4-6 years who had registered their children in the preschool centers of one of the twenty-two districts of Tehran in the academic year of 2021-2022. Cluster Multi-stage sampling was done and according to the entry and exit criteria of the study, 32 people were selected and randomly divided into two experimental and control groups of 16. To collect data, The Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ) (Robinson et al., 1995) and the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function Preschool Version (BRIEF-P)(Gioia et al., 2003) were used. The executive function based parenting package(Ghasemi et al., 1401) for the experimental group was implemented in eight 70-minute sessions. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, as well as inferential statistics, such as repeated–measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Bonferroni post–hoc test using SPSS18. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the average score of the child's cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control in the pre-test stage with the post-test (p