Background: Research on the relationships between parental factors and children's executive function (EF) has been conducted mainly in Western cultures. Aim: This study provides the first empirical test, in a non-Western context, of how maternal EF and parenting behaviours relate to child EF. Sample South Korean mothers and their preschool…

Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to make inferences about mental states. Thus far, little research has examined ToM development in middle childhood. Importantly, recent studies have distinguished between making inferences about beliefs (cognitive ToM) and emotions (affective ToM). ToM has also been associated with executive functioning,…

When bilinguals speak, both fluent language systems become activated in parallel and exert an influence on speech production. As a consequence of maintaining separation between the two linguistic systems, bilinguals are purported to develop enhanced executive control functioning. Like bilinguals, individuals who speak two dialects must also…

Parents and professionals are concerned that second language exposure may delay communication in children with ASD. In this study 174 youth (6-16 years) with and without ASD, exposed to a second language, were compared on executive function (EF) and functional communication (FC) with their peers without exposure. There were no significant…

Purpose: Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have weaknesses in executive functioning (EF), specifically in tasks testing interference control and working memory. It is unknown how EF develops in children with DLD, if EF abilities are related to DLD severity and persistence, and if EF weaknesses expand to selective attention.…

The relationship between executive functions (inhibitory control and working memory) and metacognitive skills was investigated by applying correlational and regression analyses to data collected from two groups of children. To date, research in this area has lacked a theoretical model for considering these relationships; here we propose and test…

This study investigated the association of a performance-based measure of executive functioning (EF) with academic, social, and behavioral performance ratings in a convenience sample of 153 children aged 5 to 12 (78% male, 83% Caucasian) diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Multivariate regression showed that above and…

One core question in studies of language processing is the extent to which interlocutors engage in real-time communicative perspective-taking. Current evidence suggests that both children and young adult listeners are able to draw on common ground (shared knowledge) to guide referential interpretation. However, less is known about older listeners,…

Purpose: The aim of the study was to compare comprehension of spectrally degraded (noise-vocoded [NV]) speech and perceptual learning of NV speech between adolescents and young adults and examine the role of phonological processing and executive functions in this perception. Method: Sixteen younger adolescents (11-13 years), 16 older adolescents…

This experimental research assessed the influence of graded levels of self-distancing--psychological distancing from one's egocentric perspective--on executive function (EF) in young children. Three- (n = 48) and 5-year-old (n = 48) children were randomly assigned to one of four manipulations of distance from the self (from proximal to distal:…

The ability to attend to one among multiple sources of information is central to everyday functioning. Just as central is the ability to switch attention among competing inputs as the task at hand changes. Such processes develop surprisingly slowly, such that even into adolescence, we remain slower and more error prone at switching among tasks…

Purpose: This study examined bilinguals' performance on functional executive function map tasks such as the Zoo Map from the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome and the extent to which working memory, set-shifting, and inhibition measures predicted bilinguals' performance on these tasks. Additionally, we explored the utility of…

Research has established that executive functions, the skills required to monitor and control thought and action, are related to achievement in mathematics. Until recently research has focused on working memory, but studies are beginning to show that inhibition skills--the ability to suppress distracting information and unwanted responses--are…

Purpose: The Functional Assessment of Verbal Reasoning and Executive Strategies (FAVRES; MacDonald, 2005) test was designed for use by speech-language pathologists to assess verbal reasoning, complex comprehension, discourse, and executive skills during performance on a set of challenging and ecologically valid functional tasks. A recent French…

Conflict adaptation is key in how children self-regulate and assert cognitive control in a given situation compared with a previous experience. In the current study, we analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify age-related differences in conflict adaptation. Participants of different ages (5-year-old children, 10-year-old children, and…