In order to make appropriate educational recommendations, psychologists must understand how cognitive test scores influence specific academic outcomes for students of different ability levels. We used data from the WISC-V and WIAT-III (N = 181) to examine which WISC-V Index scores predicted children's specific and broad academic skills and if…

Commonly proven abnormalities in the structure and functioning of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are related to cognitive deficits in children with ADHD. The purpose of the randomized controlled study was to assess the efficacy of intervention using hemoencephalographic biofeedback (HEG BFB) in PFC in ADHD and neurotypical children. The final cohort…

The present study investigated the executive functioning of working memory, inhibition, shifting, and planning in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia and how they related to Chinese (L1) and English (L2) reading comprehension. Fifty-seven Hong Kong Chinese students at Grade 7 were compared with 57 typically developing readers of…

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 demands on mathematical problem-solving have increased in almost all school systems internationally and may constitute a barrier for children with special educational needs (SEN). This study explored the role of fluid reasoning (FR), working memory (WM) and complex executive function of planning (EF) in children (N = 62) referred for…

Background: Sleep problems have an impact on executive functioning in the general population. While children with Down syndrome (DS) are at high risk for sleep problems, the impact of these sleep problems on executive functioning in school-age children with DS is less well documented. Our study examined the relationship between parent-reported and…

Purpose: This study examined the role of cognition on the navigational process of a speech-generating device (SGD) among individuals with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The objective was to investigate the role of various cognitive factors (i.e., cognitive flexibility, sustained attention, categorization, fluid reasoning, and…

A person-oriented approach examined the extent to which patterns of school readiness across social and cognitive domains in 944 typically-developing 54-month-old children forecast academic achievement, social-emotional development, risk taking, and executive functioning at age 15. Prior work identified six distinct profiles of school readiness at…

Background: Developing sufficient mathematical skills is a prerequisite to function adequately in society today. Given this, an important task is to increase our understanding regarding the cognitive mechanisms underlying young people's acquisition of early number skills and formal mathematical knowledge. Aims: The purpose was to examine whether…

Although many studies use feedback learning paradigms to study the process of learning in laboratory settings, little is known about their relevance for real-world learning settings such as school. In a large developmental sample (N = 228, 8-25 years), we investigated whether performance and neural activity during a feedback learning task…

Brain science reveals that there are two periods of heightened plasticity, a time when the brain is especially prone to change: The first period is from birth to age 3; the second is during adolescence. The author, Laurence Steinberg, suggests that this finding should stimulate interest in secondary education as an opportune time to intervene to…

The current study tested a multiple-cognitive predictor model of word reading, math ability, and attention in a community-based sample of twins ages 8 to 16 years (N = 636). The objective was to identify cognitive predictors unique to each skill domain as well as cognitive predictors shared among skills that could help explain their overlap and…

Competent reading requires various skills beyond those for basic word reading (i.e., core language skills, rapid naming, phonological processing). Contributing "higher-level" or domain-general processes include information processing speed and executive functions (working memory, strategic problem solving, attentional switching).…

This study examined associations between broad cognitive abilities (Fluid Reasoning [Gf], Short-Term Working Memory [Gwm], Long-Term Storage and Retrieval [Glr], Processing Speed [Gs], Comprehension-Knowledge [Gc], Visual Processing [Gv], and Auditory Processing [Ga]) and reading achievement (Basic Reading Skills, Reading Rate, Reading Fluency,…

This article presents two studies investigating the role of executive functioning in written text comprehension in children and adolescents. In a first study, the involvement of executive functions in reading comprehension performance was examined in normally developing children in fifth grade. Two aspects of text comprehension were…