Debates about lowering the voting age often center on whether 16- and 17-year-old adolescents possess sufficient cognitive capacity and political knowledge to participate in politics. Little empirical research has examined age differences in adolescents' and adults' complexity of reasoning about political issues. We surveyed adults (n = 778;…

The current paper reports long-term impacts of the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) on measures of achievement, cognitive functioning, and behavioral regulation taken toward the end of students' high school careers. The CSRP was a self-regulation-focused early childhood intervention implemented in Head Start centers serving high-poverty…

Understanding gender differences in human cognitive development may contribute to understanding the gender differences in outcomes in cognitive ageing. However, evaluation of this topic has been hindered by a lack of representative, longitudinal data from different aged cohorts measured on the same cognitive tests. Gender differences in cognitive…

We examined whether attained socioeconomic status (SES) moderated genetic and environmental sources of individual differences in cognitive performance using pooled data from 9 adult twin studies. Prior work concerning SES moderation of cognitive performance has focused on rearing SES. The current adult sample of 12,196 individuals (aged 27-98…

This study examines the extent to which iron deficiency in infancy contributes to adverse neurocognitive and educational outcomes in young adulthood directly and indirectly, through its influence on verbal cognition and attention problems in childhood. Young adults (N = 1,000, M age = 21.3 years, 52% female; of Spanish or indigenous descent) from…

Intraindividual variability (IIV) in cognitive speed, or moment-to-moment changes in ability, is a developmental phenomenon indicative of neurological integrity that increases gradually across adulthood. Past research has shown that IIV negatively covaries with cognitive performance, in which higher IIV at one occasion is associated with poorer…

The present study prospectively evaluated cumulative early life perceived stress in relation to differential change in memory and perceptual speed from middle childhood to early adulthood. We aimed to identify periods of cognitive development susceptible to the effects of perceived stress among both adopted and nonadopted individuals. The sample…

Learning the names of geometric shapes is at the intersection of early spatial, mathematical, and language skills, all important for school-readiness and predictors of later abilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We investigated whether socioeconomic status (SES) influenced children's processing of shape names and…

We investigated 7- to 10-year-old children's productive extension of semantic memory through self-generation of new factual knowledge derived through integration of separate yet related facts learned through instruction or through reading. In Experiment 1, an experimenter read the to-be-integrated facts. Children successfully learned and…

In line with the frontal hypothesis of aging, the ability to plan ahead undergoes substantial change during normal aging. Although impairments on the Tower of London planning task were reported earlier, associations between age-related declines and specific cognitive demands on planning have not been studied. Here we investigated the impact of…

Developmental differences in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and superior parietal cortex (SPC) activation are associated with differences in how children, adolescents, and adults learn from performance feedback in rule-learning tasks (Crone, Zanolie, Leijenhorst, Westenberg, & Rombouts, 2008). Both…

The relation of self-regulation measured prior to school entry to developing math and reading ability in prekindergarten through the second grade was examined in a prospective longitudinal sample of 1,292 children and families in predominantly rural and low-income communities in 2 regions of high poverty in the United States. Direct assessments of…

Having a sense of purpose is recognized as an important resource for maintaining health and well-being over the life span. We examined associations of individual differences in sense of purpose with levels and rates of change in indices of aging well (health, cognition, and depressive symptoms) in a sample of 1,475 older adults (M[subscript age] =…

The present study involved 120 kindergartners, of whom n = 60 were followed up to first grade. Upon making inquiries regarding closeness in teacher-child relationships in the classrooms, the children participated in a laboratory situation in which they were exposed to computerized tasks. These tasks challenged the cognitive processes thought to…

In many instances, children and older adults show similar difficulties in reward-based learning and outcome monitoring. These impairments are most pronounced in situations in which reward is uncertain (e.g., probabilistic reward schedules) and if outcome information is ambiguous (e.g., the relative value of outcomes has to be learned).…