Background: The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) employs a hierarchical model of general intelligence in which index scores separate out different clinically-relevant aspects of intelligence; the test is designed such that index scores are statistically independent from one another within the normative sample. Whether or not the…

Purpose: Children with neurodevelopmental disorders historically exhibit lower and more variable nonverbal intelligence (NVIQ) scores compared to their typically developing peers. We hypothesize that the intrinsic characteristics of the tests themselves, particularly the cognitive constructs they assess, may account for both the lower scores and…

Purpose: This registered report aimed to replicate previous findings showing that years of music training predicts speech-perception-in-noise (SPIN) skills in children. In addition, it aimed to investigate whether the musician SPIN advantage is influenced by cognitive factors such as general intelligence or working memory. Method: Following…

This study examined auditive and visual working memory and metacognitive knowledge in 92 gifted children (aged between eight and twelve), utilising a pre-test-training-post-test design, known as the cognitive training design. This approach was used to examine the working memory and metacognitive knowledge of gifted children concerning the…

The present study examined the posited structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Fifth Edition (WISC-V) ancillary index scores with normative sample participants aged 6-16 years (N = 2200) using a series of confirmatory factor analyzes (CFA) with maximum likelihood estimation. CFA results supported the retention of auditory…

Objective: To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying working memory (WM) deficits in children with ADHD. Method: WM was compared between thirty-four children with ADHD and thirty-four matched controls using neuropsychological tests, spatial and verbal versions of modified delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) tasks, and the event-related…

Literature underlines the social stigma frequently connected to children with SLD associated with vulnerability to social exclusion and lower socio-emotional competencies. Consequently, they may internalise this biased perspective, affecting their sense of self and behaviour in social contexts. The present study aims to explore socio-emotional…

We leveraged nationally representative data from the Panel study of Income Dynamics-Child Development Supplement (N = 3,562) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal study (N = 18,174), to chart the development of working memory, indexed via verbal forward and backward digit span task performance, from 3 to 19 years of age. Results revealed nonlinear…

Keeping a conversation going is the social glue of friendships. The DSM criteria for autism list difficulties with back-and-forth conversation but does not necessitate that all autistic children will be equally impacted. We carried out three studies (two pre-registered) with verbally fluent school children (age 5-9 years) to investigate how…

Purpose: This study examined the extent to which prelingual cochlear implant (CI) users show a slowed speaking rate compared with typical-hearing (TH) talkers when repeating various speech stimuli and whether the slowed speech of CI users relates to their immediate verbal memory. Method: Participants included 10 prelingually deaf teenagers who…

Ancillary index scales provide assessment professionals the opportunity to conduct a more comprehensive interpretation of a student's performance on the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children, Fifth Edition (WISC-V); however, little is known about the performance of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on these scales. The ASD special…

Interpersonal Skills (ISs) and Executive Functions (EFs) are two groups of skills which are extremely relevant for children's cognitive, social and psychological development. As well as being interrelated, both can be modulated by other variables such as intelligence or sex. Many studies have tried to establish the relationship between them, but…

Previous literature has suggested the existence of a close relationship between individuals' intellectual abilities and their cognitive profile, understood as their performance in tasks tapping into the different cognitive domains. This relationship has typically been discussed in populations characterized as having high intellectual abilities, as…

This study examined whether the assessment of executive function (EF) added a unique contribution to second language (L2) reading comprehension in children in French immersion. Participants were 8- to 9-year old children who completed a collection of measures assessing French reading (i.e., word reading, decoding, and reading comprehension ) and…

In the current study, we investigated the role of vocabulary knowledge in the relation between working memory (WM) and reading comprehension, in a sample of 55 typically developing 8-year-old Italian children. The role of WM in comprehension is well-established, as both involve similar processes for successful task performance (i.e., active…