Socioeconomic attainment gaps in mathematical ability are evident before children begin school, and widen over time. Little is known about why early attainment gaps emerge. Two cross-sectional correlational studies were conducted in 2018-2019 with socioeconomically diverse preschoolers, to explore four factors that might explain why attainment…

Adversity-exposed youth tend to score lower on cognitive tests. However, the hidden talents approach proposes some abilities are enhanced by adversity, especially under ecologically relevant conditions. Two versions of an attention-shifting and working memory updating task--one abstract, one ecological--were administered to 618 youth (M[subscript…

Working memory training improves children's cognitive performance on untrained tasks; however, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms. This was investigated in 32 typically developing children aged 10-14 years (19 girls and 13 boys) using a randomized controlled design and multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging (Devon, UK;…

The cognitive functioning of children who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) has received less attention than their emotional-behavioral outcomes. Drawing upon data from 615 (48.4% female) 10-year-old Australian-born children and their mothers (9.6% of mothers born in non-English speaking countries) participating in a community-based…

Cognitive abilities are essential to children's overall growth; thus, the implementation of early and effective training interventions is a major challenge for developmental psychologists and teachers. This study explores whether an intervention simultaneously operating on fluid reasoning (FR), visuospatial, narrative, and motor abilities could…

Through five waves of data collection, this longitudinal study investigated the development of spatial skills in 304 elementary school children (M[subscript age] = 7.64 years) as they progressed from the second to fourth grade. The study focused on whether multiple latent classes with different developmental profiles best explain development.…

Mental abacus (MA) is a technique of performing fast, accurate arithmetic using a mental image of an abacus; experts exhibit astonishing calculation abilities. Over 3 years, 204 elementary school students (age range at outset: 5-7 years old) participated in a randomized, controlled trial to test whether MA expertise (a) can be acquired in standard…

This study investigated whether the effect of exposure to code-switching on bilingual children's language performance varied depending on verbal working memory (WM). A large sample of school-aged Spanish-English bilingual children (N = 174, Mage = 7.78) was recruited, and children were administered language measures in English and Spanish. The…

The reported research tested the hypothesis that young children detect logical inconsistency in communicative contexts that support the evaluation of speakers' epistemic reliability. In two experiments (N = 194), 3- to 5-year-olds were presented with two speakers who expressed logically consistent or inconsistent claims. Three-year-olds failed to…

This study employs the Specificity Principle to examine the relative impacts of external (input quantity at home and at school, number of books and reading frequency at home, teachers' degree and experience, language usage, socioeconomic status) and internal factors (children's working memory, nonverbal intelligence, learning-related…

Using data from children in South Korea (N = 145, M[subscript age] = 6.08), it was determined how low-level language and cognitive skills (vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and working memory) and high-level cognitive skills (comprehension monitoring and theory of mind [ToM]) are related to listening comprehension and whether listening…

The development of response inhibition was investigated using a computerized go/no-go task, in a lagged sequential design where 376 preschool children were assessed repeatedly between 3.0 and 5.25 years of age. Growth curve modeling was used to examine change in performance and predictors of individual differences. The most pronounced change was…

Data from 1,364 children and families who participated in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were analyzed to track the early correlates and later academic outcomes of planning during middle childhood. Maternal education, through its effect on parenting quality when…

This review article examines theoretical and methodological issues in the construction of a developmental perspective on executive function (EF) in childhood and adolescence. Unlike most reviews of EF, which focus on preschoolers, this review focuses on studies that include large age ranges. It outlines the development of the foundational…

This study explored the cognitive and behavioral profiles of children with working memory impairments. In an initial screening of 3,189 five- to eleven-year-olds, 308 were identified as having very low working memory scores. Cognitive skills (IQ, vocabulary, reading, and math), classroom behavior, and self-esteem were assessed. The majority of the…