Gross motor skills and development of emotional understanding of children aged 3–6 years: Executive function as a mediator

We investigated the relationship between the object control and emotional understanding of children aged 3 to 6 years, and the underlying mechanisms of its action. Using cluster sampling, we assessed the object control, inhibitory control, and emotional understanding of 694 children attending two kindergartens in a prefecture-level city in China. The children completed the Test of Gross Motor Development-2, the day–night Stroop task, and emotional understanding tasks. The results showed that the children’s object control skills positively and significantly predicted their emotional understanding and inhibitory control. Object control skills affected emotional understanding not only directly, but also through the mediating effect of inhibitory control. These findings can provide theoretical guidance and practical approaches for improving children's emotional understanding.