Previous research findings indicate that young children from East Asia outperform their counterparts from Europe and North America on executive function (EF) tasks. However, very few cross-national studies have focused on EF development during middle childhood. The current study assessed the EF performance of 170 children in grades 2 and 4 from…

In contrast to classical phonological span tasks, which require verbal recall, those used in self-reliant, group-administrable working memory measurement contain a visuospatial response format. As a consequence, these tasks involve recoding, executive, and visual search requirements in addition to encoding and storage processes. To examine…

Research Findings: Children differ in their ability to adapt to elementary school. Yet, the family factors that foster a successful transition to elementary school are less well understood. Family cohesion as an indicator of a positive emotional climate within families may play an important role for children's ability to adapt to school. Thus,…