Research and theorizing on executive function (EF) in childhood has been disproportionately focused on preschool age children. This review paper outlines the importance of examining EF throughout childhood, and even across the lifespan. First, examining EF in older children can address the question of whether EF is a unitary construct. The…

There is much current interest in how adverse experiences early in life might affect certain elements of physiological, behavioral, and psychological functioning across the lifespan. Recent conceptual frameworks for studying the effects of early experience have involved constructs such as experience-expectant, experience-dependent, and…

The medial temporal lobe memory system matures relatively early and supports rudimentary declarative memory in young infants. There is considerable development, however, in the memory processes that underlie declarative memory performance during infancy. Here we consider age-related changes in encoding, retention, and retrieval in the context of…

States that Demetriou and Raftopoulos's theory of cognitive developmental change based on the nature of representation is flawed. Argues against theme of representation as encoding as well as an alternative model of representation as interactivism. Concludes that other issues such as architectural support, variation and selective retention,…

Rejoins that core elements of the mind emerge out of interactions between individual and environment. States that different approaches can be used to model different levels or phases in the organization and development of the mind. Focuses on issues of interactivism, connectionism, computationalism, and experientialism as complementary tools for…

Presents theory that fundamental causes of cognitive change reside in the architecture of the mind. Describes mind as a three-level universe, types of changes occurring in cognitive development, and mechanisms that cause changes. Offers a general model of the nature of cognitive development and current research in cognitive development and…

Although thermal conditions influence the development of living organisms in a wide variety of ways, this topic has been recently ignored in humans. This paper reintroduces thermal conditions as a topic of importance for developmentalists by presenting an example of how thermal conditions are hypothesized to influence a particular developmental…

Presents information on prenatal brain development, detailing the functions controlled by the medulla, pons, and midbrain, and the implications for cognitive development. Concludes that fetal cognitive motor activity, including auditory discrimination, orienting, the wake-sleep cycle, fetal heart rate accelerations, and defensive reactions,…