The number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease (AD), a progressive and terminal kind of dementia, continues to rise with an estimated 14 million Americans affected by 2050. Prior to an AD diagnosis, many individuals are diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and have similar, but less severe, symptoms as those with AD. A common…

Anxiety in Children can develop into pervasive disorders in adulthood if not treated. Research shows dysfunctional Executive Function (EF) and anxiety are both shown to have a negative impact on math achievement in children and adolescents (Trezise & Reeve, 2018; Kalaycioglu, 2015; Owens, Stevenson, Hadwin & Norgate, 2012). Chung, Weyandt,…

In this dissertation, we present three empirical studies exploring the relationship between the central planning processes of spoken word production--lexical selection, phonological encoding, and phonetic encoding--and three other cognitive processes traditionally considered separate or peripheral to this core system. Study 1 examines the role of…