Developmental psychology focuses on how psychological constructs change with age. In cognitive development research, however, the specifics of this emergence is often underspecified. Researchers often provisionally assume linear growth by including chronological age as a predictor in regression models. In this work, we aim to evaluate this…

Although exploratory play is considered a hallmark of cognitive development and learning, relatively few studies have been able to quantitatively characterize the shifts that may occur in children's approach to exploration. One reason for this gap is due to challenges coding and analyzing children's exploratory play behavior. In our paper, we…

What do cows drink? The correct answer is water, but many are tempted to say milk. The disposition to override an intuitive response (milk) with a more analytic response (water) is known as "cognitive reflection." Tests of cognitive reflection predict a wide range of skills and abilities in adults. In this article, we discuss the…

Intelligence (IQ) scores are used in educational and vocational planning for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) yet little is known about the stability of IQ throughout development. We examined longitudinal age-related IQ stability in 119 individuals with ASD (3-36 years of age at first visit) and 128 typically developing controls.…

Executive function (EF) skills are a set of attention-regulation skills involved in intentional, goal-directed behavior that include (but are not limited to) the cool EF skills of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control, and also the hot EF skill of intentional reevaluation. These skills are inevitably expressed in goal- and…

Piaget's theory of stage structure is synonymous with discussions involving cognitive development. As with any theoretical model, researchers inevitably and rightly seek to affirm and/or contest the elements of the model presented. In this comparative study, students' performance across three hands-on engineering tasks for two distinct student…

During human childhood, brain development and body growth compete for limited metabolic resources, resulting in a trade-off where energy allocated to brain development can decrease as body growth accelerates. This preregistered study explores the relationship between language skills, serving as a proxy for brain development, and body mass index at…

While working memory (WM) is a powerful predictor for children's school outcomes, autistic children are more likely to experience delays. This study compared autistic children and their neurotypical peers' WM development over their elementary school years, including relative growth and period of plasticity. Using a nationally-representative…

Are there developmental pathways for learning that provide continuity from early learning through adulthood with measurable intervals for assessment and with transitions for learning that are understandable, stable, identifiable, communicable, flexible, and affordable to implement? If so, what are the foundations for learning that enable students…

Shared intentionality theory posits that at age 3, children expand their conception of plural agency to include 3- or more-person groups. We sought to determine whether this conceptual shift is detectable in children's pronoun use. We report the results of a series of Bayesian hierarchical generative models fitted to 479 English-speaking…

Empathy and executive functions (EFs) are multimodal constructs that enable individuals to cope with their environment. Both abilities develop throughout childhood and are known to contribute to social behavior and academic performance in young adolescents. Notably, mentalizing and EF activate shared frontotemporal brain areas, which in previous…

Scientific literature about neuromyths has proliferated in the last few years. However, there is a gap of knowledge around neuroedumyths. While neuromyths are based on hoaxes about the brain, neuroedumyths use neuroscientific concepts but state consequences for education that are false. This article presents, for the first time, research about…

Cognitive development of eighth-grade students, as identified by Jean Piaget, occurs during a time when many of them are transitioning between concrete operations and formal operations where the ability to think in abstract concepts becomes possible. Because of this period of transition, many eighth-grade students find difficulty in demonstrating…

Testing of previously studied information potentiates subsequent learning of new information, a phenomenon referred to as the "forward testing effect" (FTE). The current study aimed to investigate the developmental trajectory of the FTE and whether the reset-of-encoding process contributes to the FTE. Younger children, older children,…

The Neurosequential Model in Education (NME) is described as a developmentally sensitive and biologically respectful approach to development and learning. This paper postulates that the NME shares many commonalities with the Montessori Method in that it, too, is developmentally sensitive and adheres to biologically respectful concepts. This paper…