Executive functions (EF) are key predictors of long-term success that develop rapidly in early childhood. However, EF's developmental trajectory from preschool to kindergarten is not fully understood due to conceptual ambiguity (e.g., whether it is a single construct or multiple related constructs) and methodological limitations (e.g., previous…

This study examined autonomic profiles in preschoolers (N = 278, age = 4.7 years) and their relations to self-regulation outcomes concurrently and one year later, in kindergarten. Children's sympathetic (preejection period [PEP]) and parasympathetic activity (respiratory sinus arrythmia [RSA]) were measured at rest and during cognitive and…

Children's ability to discriminate nonsymbolic number (e.g., the number of items in a set) is a commonly studied predictor of later math skills. Number discrimination improves throughout development, but what drives this improvement is unclear. Competing theories suggest that it may be due to a sharpening numerical representation or an improved…

For many years, researchers studied executive functions (EFs) in the laboratory with a focus on understanding an individual child's development and brain processes in a controlled environment. Building on this foundational research, there is a growing interest in EFs in the context of a child's dynamic, social world, and the contextual and…

Prior work has conceptualized children's executive function and self-regulation skills as relatively stable across short periods of time. Grounded in long-standing contextual theories of human development, this study introduces a new observational tool for measuring children's regulatory skills across different naturally occurring situations…

The benefits of active music participation and training for cognitive development have been evidenced in multiple studies, with this link leveraged in music therapy approaches with clinical populations. Although music, rhythm, and movement activities are widely integrated into children's play and early education, few studies have systematically…

This paper used a nationally representative sample of children from the United States to examine the extent to which physical activity and sports participation may promote growth in children's executive functions (EFs), attention, and social self-control over time. Using data from the ECLS-K:2011 (N = 18,174), findings indicated that regular…

Previous studies have documented that individual differences in fine and gross motor skills are associated with executive function (EF) skills. This study used an experimental design to test whether participating in cognitively challenging motor skills activities was causally related to improvements in motor skills and two key indicators of school…

Most of what is known about the association between children's executive function (EF) and school readiness skills is derived from research conducted in Western countries. We tested whether these associations were evident in a middle-income country context. Participants were 1,480 children, aged 4-7 years old, who participated in an endline…

The connection between brain rhythms at rest and cognition remains poorly understood. This is especially true during early childhood in which neuroimaging data are relatively scarce. We developed a new method for collecting eyes closed and eyes open resting state electroencephalography (EEG) suitable for young children. We report results…

Accumulating evidence suggests that North Americans tend to focus on central objects whereas East Asians tend to pay more attention to contextual information in a visual scene. Although it is generally believed that such culturally divergent attention tendencies develop through socialization, existing evidence largely depends on adult samples.…

The present longitudinal study tested the roles of early childhood executive control (EC) as well as exposure to poverty-related adversity at family and school levels as key predictors of low-income children's EC in elementary school ("n" = 391). Findings suggest that children's EC difficulties in preschool and lower family income from…