The nature of the development of arithmetic performance has long been intensively studied, and available scientific evidence can be evaluated and synthesized in light of Nelson and Narens' model of metacognition. According to the Nelson-Narens model, human cognition can be split into two or more interrelated levels. Obviously, in the case of more…

Over the past 50 years, scientists have made amazing discoveries about the origins of human language acquisition. Central to this field of study is the process by which infants' perceptual sensitivities gradually align with native language structure, known as "perceptual narrowing." Perceptual narrowing offers a theoretical account of…

Before- and after-school programs can be excellent opportunities for schools to provide supplemental physical activity (PA) and reinforce the knowledge, skills, and dispositions taught in physical education, particularly when some schools may perceive PA during the school day as competing with academic learning time. Before- and after-school PA…

Over two-thirds of youth participate in a structured sport, making it a vital context in which transactional relations with cognitive development can occur. Yet, little is known about how these constructs inform one another across childhood. Most previous studies have focused on health benefits of sport participation, or on demographic and family…

While the study of family literacy in Latino communities has grown in the U.S. since the 1990s, this is a nascent research area in Latin America, with Chile being no exception. Limited information is available about the impact of parents' literacy practice on child literacy outcomes at different developmental stages, the shared reading practices…

What do cows drink? The correct answer is water, but many are tempted to say milk. The disposition to override an intuitive response (milk) with a more analytic response (water) is known as "cognitive reflection." Tests of cognitive reflection predict a wide range of skills and abilities in adults. In this article, we discuss the…

Adult observers are sensitive to the configuration of facial features within a face, able to distinguish between relative differences in feature spacing, and detecting deviations from typical facial appearance. How does the representation of the typical configuration of facial features develop? While there is a great deal of work describing…

Research has shown that the first few years of a child's life are critical for developing executive functioning and emotional regulatory skills. This study aimed to evaluate how begin to ECSEL (Emotional, Cognitive and Social Early Learning), an intervention designed to promote young children's emotional competence, influenced children's…

Cognitive control (also referred to as executive functions) corresponds to a set of cognitive processes that support the goal-directed regulation of thoughts and actions. It plays a major role in complex activities and predicts later academic achievement. Importantly, while growing up, children are progressively transitioning from engaging…

At the level of society and educational planners, there is a widespread expectation that teachers must use creative teaching approaches to fulfill the requirements of the twenty-first century. The mere teacher-centered method mainly focuses on memorization and may not be feasible. Teachers must be aware of innovative methods of teaching. One such…

Trajectories of cognitive and neural development suggest that, despite early emergence, the ability to extract environmental patterns changes across childhood. Here, 5- to 9-year-olds and adults (N = 211, 110 females, in a large Canadian city) completed a memory test assessing what they remembered after watching a stream of shape triplets: the…

Episodic memories formed during infancy are rapidly forgotten, a phenomenon associated with infantile amnesia, the inability of adults to recall early-life memories. In both rats and mice, infantile memories, although not expressed, are actually stored long term in a latent form. These latent memories can be reinstated later in life by certain…

How we feel about an outcome often depends on how close an alternative outcome was to occurring. In four experiments, we investigated whether predominantly White, middle-class, Canadian children (N = 425, Experiments 1-3) and American adults (N = 227, Experiment 4) consider close counterfactual alternatives when inferring other people's emotions.…

Executive functioning (EF) skills are crucial for young students to meet academic and social demands at school. EF skill development is particularly amenable to environmental influences in the early years. In classroom settings, teachers play a vital role in providing support to promote these skills. Research is limited regarding teachers'…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the development of auditory selective attention to speech in noise by examining the ability of infants to prefer child-directed speech (CDS) over time-reversed speech (TRS) presented in "on-channel" and "off-channel" noise. Method: A total of 32 infants participated in the study. Sixteen…