Executive functions (EF) are key predictors of long-term success that develop rapidly in early childhood. However, EF's developmental trajectory from preschool to kindergarten is not fully understood due to conceptual ambiguity (e.g., whether it is a single construct or multiple related constructs) and methodological limitations (e.g., previous…

An overarching framework in the field of developmental psychology highlights the close linkage of cognition with emotion; however, the extent to which this framework supports the relationship between executive functions and emotion understanding in young children remains unclear. Hence, we employ a longitudinal tracking study to investigate the…

Pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) improves the school readiness of all children, but less is known about whether associations between enrollment in Pre-K and different indicators of social-emotional and executive functioning (EF) skills are sustained as children move into and across elementary school. The current study examines associations between…

Pre-kindergarten (Pre-K) improves the school readiness of all children, but less is known about whether associations between enrollment in Pre-K and different indicators of social-emotional and executive functioning (EF) skills are sustained as children move into and across elementary school. The current study examines associations between…

Pronounced developmental progression during the transition to formal schooling can be found in executive functions (EF) and metacognition (MC). However, it is still unclear whether and how EF and MC influence each other during this transition. Previous research with young children suggests that inhibition may be a prerequisite for monitoring…

Executive function skills are crucial for children in the 21st century, serving as indicators of their readiness for learning. Children with well-developed executive function skills can effectively accomplish various tasks, solve problems using diverse strategies, and collaborate with others happily. This research aims to: 1. Identify the…

Children who begin formal schooling with stronger executive functioning (EF) capacities are better able to adapt to a more regimented learning environment and to succeed academically. Unfortunately, children growing up in low-income households are less prepared to meet the EF demands required of more formal learning environments than their…

For many years, researchers studied executive functions (EFs) in the laboratory with a focus on understanding an individual child's development and brain processes in a controlled environment. Building on this foundational research, there is a growing interest in EFs in the context of a child's dynamic, social world, and the contextual and…

Prior work has conceptualized children's executive function and self-regulation skills as relatively stable across short periods of time. Grounded in long-standing contextual theories of human development, this study introduces a new observational tool for measuring children's regulatory skills across different naturally occurring situations…

Across geographically diverse samples, engagement in stimulating activities with young children is considered an important element of parenting that promotes cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional development. Indicators of stimulation activities are often summed, based on the assumption that more stimulation is better and that different…

Many studies examine how bilinguals and monolinguals differ in their executive function abilities at one time-point or cross-sectionally. Fewer examine how these groups of children may differ over time. Using nationally representative data obtained from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K:2011), this…

Executive functions (EF) are domain-general cognitive skills that predict foundational academic skills such as literacy and numeracy. However, less is known about the relation between EFs and science achievement. The nature of this relation might be explained by the theory of mutualism, which states that development is the result of complex and…

The presented study focuses on children aged from 5 to 6.5 who attend Czech kindergartens. Its purpose is to explore a potential positive impact of an educational game application on malleability of children's spatial skills through the application usage. The research was conducted as a pedagogical experiment in which the pre-test and post-test…

This paper used a nationally representative sample of children from the United States to examine the extent to which physical activity and sports participation may promote growth in children's executive functions (EFs), attention, and social self-control over time. Using data from the ECLS-K:2011 (N = 18,174), findings indicated that regular…

Background: Both transactional and common etiological models have been proposed as explanations of why externalizing behavior problems (EBP) and internalizing behavior problems (IBP) co-occur in children. Yet little research has empirically evaluated these competing theoretical explanations. We examined whether EBP and IBP are transactionally…