The family context has been identified as an important predictor of the development of children's executive function (EF). An emerging line of research demonstrates that parents' own EF is linked to their caregiving behaviours and their children's EF. However, researchers have yet to explore the extent to which parental EF is related to specific…

High-quality, centre-based education and care during the early years benefit cognitive development, especially in children from disadvantaged backgrounds. During the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns, access to early childhood education and care (ECEC) was disrupted. We investigate how this period affected the developmental advantages…

When children transition to school between the ages of 4 and 6 years, they must learn to control their attention and behaviour to be successful. Concurrently, executive function (EF) is an important skill undergoing significant development in childhood. To understand changes occurring during this period, we examined the role of parenting in the…

The current study examined whether young children's executive functions and emotionality are related to childcare experiences and whether they work as mediators explaining the associations between childcare experiences and early school outcomes. Findings from a national sample of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)…

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (n = 11,000), this study examined the developmental outcomes of 5-year-old children in multigrade classrooms (combined prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms serving 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) compared with those of 5-year-olds attending kindergarten-only…

The preschool period is marked by rapid growth of children's self-regulation and related executive functions. Self-regulation is considered an important aspect of school readiness and is related to academic and social--emotional outcomes in childhood. Pretend play, as part of the early childhood curriculum, is hypothesized to support…

Executive functions (EF) are an important predictor of later adaptive development. A number of environmental influences, such as parenting, have been suggested as important promoters of EF development. However, behavioural genetic research has demonstrated that many environmental influences could be affected by genetic influences. Therefore, it is…

Learning to behave in socially competent ways is an essential component of children's development. This study examined the relations between children's social, communicative, and cognitive skills and their behaviours during a cooperative task, as well as how these relationships change at different ages. Early school-age (5-8 years old) and middle…

Children showing poor executive functioning may not fully benefit from learning experiences at home and school and may lag behind in literacy skills. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of 276 kindergarten children. Executive functions and literacy skills were tested at about 61?months and again a year later. In line with earlier studies,…

Despite consensus in the developmental literature regarding the role of executive function (EF) skills in supporting the development of language skills during the preschool years, we know relatively little about the associations between EF skills, including all EF components, and vocabulary skills among preschool-aged children. In this paper, we…

The development of executive functions in the preschool years is not fully understood. Although there exists a large body of research investigating the maturation of executive functioning in school-aged children, little is known about the emergence of such skills, in particular inhibition, among preschool-aged children. Understanding developmental…

This review of 20 years of developmental research on Executive Functions (EF) offers a broad-brushstroke picture that touches on multiple issues including: (i) findings from typical and atypical groups, from infancy to adolescence; (ii) advances in assessment tools and in statistical analysis; (iii) the interplay between EF and other cognitive…