Executive function is foundational for cognitive development. Previous research has shown both gross motor skills and physical activity to be related to executive function. However, evidence for these relationships in the preschool years, as well as in low- and middle-income countries is lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the…

Socioeconomic status (SES) and bilingualism have been shown to influence executive functioning during early childhood. Less is known, however, about how the two factors interact within an individual. By analyzing a nationally representative sample of approximately 18,200 children who were tracked from ages 5 to 7 across four waves, both higher SES…

Metacognitive training is an emerging cognitive intervention for children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) that teaches children to think about their thinking and use strategies to improve learning and regulation. We investigated how children with FASD acquired metacognitive strategies during a computerized intervention delivered in a…

Executive function (EF) is related to reading. However, there is a lack of clarity around (a) the relative contribution of different components of EF to different reading components (word reading, fluency, comprehension), and (b) how EF operates in the context of known strong language predictors (e.g., components of the simple view of reading or…

Adolescents with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD) experience difficulties with socio-emotional adjustment, including compromised friendships, feelings of loneliness, and depression. Using a sample of 127 adolescents with HFASD and their parents, this study is first to examine: (1) relations between organized activity (OA)…

The present research set out to investigate the effect of working memory on English reading comprehension of Chinese middle school students. To do so, we recruited 150 Chinese students at grade 8 and conducted two studies. Study 1 examined the predictive power of working memory on the performance of English reading comprehension, grammar, and…

We explored the potential of a robotics application in education as a measurement tool of child executive functioning skills. Sixty-five kindergarteners received assignments to go through a maze with a programmable robot, the Bee-Bot. Via observation we quantified how they solved these tasks. Their performance was successfully aggregated into a…

This case study analyzes and describes the language, executive function, and psychosocial outcomes of two 6-year-old children with cochlear implants in the context of their respective family environments. Despite having nearly identical audiological histories, their language abilities and social skills are markedly different from one another,…

Executive function (EF) plays a foundational role in development. A brain-based model of EF development is probed for the experiences that strengthen EF in the dimensional change card sort task in which children sort cards by one rule and then are asked to switch to another. Three-year-olds perseverate on the first rule, failing the task, whereas…

Little is known about the relationship between emotional creativity and age-related cognitive decline. This study explored how deficits in some cognitive abilities are related to emotional creativity, i.e., cognitive abilities relating to originality and appropriateness in emotional experience. One hundred and eighty-seven older adults (mean…

Adolescence is a period of rapid cognitive change, including an initial increase in speed of cognitive processing and a more gradual increase in efficiency of cognitive processing. This study examined how neurophysiological changes associated with adolescent development can inform the design of game-based executive function (EF) training. Two…

Autistic traits and executive function (EF) were assessed in 413 typically developing children aged 6-9 years. The children were divided into the high- autistic-trait (HAT) and low-autistic-trait (LAT) groups based on their total autistic traits. Results suggested that there were gender differences in specific autistic traits in children with LAT.…

In this study, we explored the predictive role of behavioral measures of Executive Functions (EFs) and a self-report measure of Effortful Control (EC) on the academic performance of early adolescents. We also analyzed the mediating role of self-reported empathy and social behavior rated by peers (i.e., prosocial behavior and social preference) and…

The present study investigated the relationship between two major components of executive functioning (EF) and externalizing behavior problems (EBP) during the early elementary years. More specifically, Working Memory (WM) and Cognitive Flexibility (CF) measured in kindergarten through second grade were used to predict teacher ratings of EBP in…

In this study, the direct and indirect relationships of children's self-regulation skills and their higher-order cognitive skills of cognitive flexibility and abstraction skills with their early academic competencies are examined. Within the scope of the study, the mediating role of self-regulation skills with early academic competencies is…