Previous research shows that the development of response inhibition and drawing skill are linked. The current research investigated whether this association reflects a more fundamental link between response inhibition and motor control. In Experiment 1, 3- and 4-year-olds (n = 100) were tested on measures of inhibition, fine motor control, and…

Over the last 20 years, we have learned much about the extent to which early-life deprivation affects the mental health of children and adolescents. This body of evidence comes predominantly from studies of children raised in institutional care. The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) is the only randomized controlled trial designed to…

Background: The relation between physical activity (PA), motor skills and cognitive function in children is receiving considerable attention. To transition scientific evidence into pedagogical practice, however, we need to further our understanding of which qualitative PA characteristics are best suited to stimulate motor skills and executive…

Representations of social categories help us make sense of the social world, supporting predictions and explanations about groups and individuals. In an experiment with 156 participants, we explore whether children and adults are able to understand category-property associations (such as the association between "girls" and "liking…

Cognitive development is thought to depend on the refinement and specialization of functional circuits over time, yet little is known about how this process unfolds over the course of childhood. Here we investigated growth trajectories of functional brain circuits and tested an interactive specialization model of neurocognitive development which…

Law enforcement officers can come into conflict with suspects when they need to act fast under time pressure. Improving such a decision-making skill is a challenge in a police academy. Academies can train future officers in correct psychomotor responses to attacks by a suspect. However, the ability to anticipate such attacks, and thereby make more…

If a child asks a friend to play football and the friend replies, 'I have a cough', the requesting child must make a 'relevance inference' to determine the communicative intent. Relevance inferencing is a key component of pragmatics, that is, the ability to integrate social context into language interpretation and use. We tested which cognitive…

This secondary analysis of data from a randomized control trial of an early mathematics intervention, ROOTS, explored whether patterns of intervention response were best categorized by the typical response/non-response binary or a more complex framework with additional response profiles. Participants included kindergarten students at risk for…

The relations between the developing mind and developing brain are explored. We outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that the mind comprises four systems of processes (domain-specific, attention and working memory, reasoning, and cognizance) developing in four cycles (episodic, realistic, rule-based, and principle-based…

Background: The theoretical understanding of firesetting behaviour has predominantly been developed with men in prisons or psychiatric hospitals without neurodevelopmental disabilities. Consequently, there is a lack of evidence regarding the validity of current theory when applied to adults with intellectual disabilities and/or autism. Method:…

The study aimed to investigate the effect of a training program on improving working memory for students with learning difficulties in reading Arabic. The study sample consisted of (10) students with learning disabilities from Basic Education students from the fifth and sixth grades, and those between the ages (10-11) years as a pilot group and…

Guided by two perspectives, one theoretical, and the other, methodological, we assume that social interactions provide organizing principles for transforming natural human growth into cultural development. From birth onward, the healthy child is primed to be "in transaction" with their caregivers, their surroundings, co-constructing the…

The purpose of the current study is to determine the pre-service Turkish language teachers' level of using thinking development techniques while writing informative texts. In the study, descriptive analysis-based qualitative method was employed. The study group determined by means of purposive sampling method is comprised of a total of 33…

"Patterning" is a cognitive intervention that is unknown to psychologists, but has nevertheless been taught for half a century in nearly all kindergartens and many preschools in English-speaking countries. Patterning is the understanding that a certain rule governs the sequence of items in a series. At the simplest level, if the series…

There is now wide consensus that the quality of family relationships is involved in the development of child executive functioning (EF), a set of cognitive skills that bear critical importance for social and academic adjustment at school. This body of research has, however, focused almost exclusively on dyadic parent-child interactions and failed…