Hidden Talents in Executive Functions: Childhood Social Predictors Across Guatemala, the Philippines, and South Africa

The aim of this project is to identify risk and promotive childhood social factors related to adult executive function, as well as potential ‘hidden talents’ in the face of high childhood risk, across three diverse birth cohorts in Guatemala, the Philippines, and South Africa. We will analyse early‑childhood social exposures alongside adult EF within each cohort. First, we will estimate bivariate associations between each early‑life predictor and adult EF. Next, we will use an exploratory structural equation modelling framework to group predictors into data‑driven domains and test their associations with adult EF. To study “hidden talents”, we will derive out‑of‑sample predictions of EF from a childhood risk factor (i.e., a negative predictor of EF) and identify individuals whose EF is better than predicted (positive residuals). We will then test whether early‑life domains (latent factors) form profiles that are associated with being in this “better‑than‑predicted” group compared with a risk‑matched “expected” group.