The relation of morphological awareness with reading comprehension is well established. For this advance to inform instruction, the push is now on to understand how morphological awareness is related to reading comprehension. We address this question here by examining potential mechanisms. We do so with children in Grade 1, a time at which it is…

With a focus on within-person effects, this study investigated mutualism among academic skills (reading, math, science) and between those skills and verbal working memory in a general population sample and groups with high or low skills from Grades 2 to 5 (2010-2016, N = 859-9040, age 6.27-13.13 years, 49% female, ethnically diverse). Mutualism…

Schooling, socioeconomic status (SES), and genetics all impact intelligence. However, it is unclear to what extent their contributions are unique and if they interact. Here we used a multi-trait polygenic score for cognition (cogPGS) with a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design to isolate how months of schooling relate to intelligence…

Executive functions (EFs) in early childhood are predictors of later developmental outcomes and school readiness. Much of the research on EFs and their psychosocial correlates has been conducted in high-income, minority world countries, which represent a small and biased portion of children globally. The aim of this study is to examine EFs among…

Studies have demonstrated significant associations between executive function (EF) and reading ability. Many of these studies have evaluated this association through composite EF skills. In this study, we evaluated the indirect effects of working memory (WM) and cognitive flexibility (CF) in the relation between kindergarten socioeconomic status…

Executive functions (EF), either conceptualized as skills involved in regulation of cognition and emotion in service of goal-oriented behavior, or reductively as working memory, flexibility and inhibitory control, are commonly invoked constructs in developmental science. Two main traditions on EFs measurement prevail, one consisting of ratings…

With a focus on within-person effects, this study investigated mutualism among academic skills (reading, math, science) and between those skills and verbal working memory in a general population sample and groups with high or low skills from Grades 2 to 5 (2010-2016, N = 859-9040, age 6.27-13.13 years, 49% female, ethnically diverse). Mutualism…

Executive functions (EF), including working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility, vary as a function of socioeconomic status (SES), with children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds having poorer performance than their higher SES peers. Using observational methods, we investigated cognitive stimulation in the home as a mechanism…

Working memory is an important component of executive functioning, an area of difficulty for many autistic children. However, executive functioning and working memory are highly malleable throughout childhood, and various student-level and environmental factors play important roles in their development. This study used the Early Childhood…

Although there is substantial evidence that socioeconomic status (SES) predicts children's executive function (EF), the mechanisms underlying this association are poorly understood. This study tested the utility of two theories proposed to link SES to children's EF: the family stress model and the family investment model. Data came from the…

For young children, sleep is essential for healthy development. Inadequate sleep can affect emotional, behavioural, cognitive, and health outcomes. Low family income and resources can put children at risk for poor sleep quality, impairing their subsequent cognitive abilities. The current study examined low socioeconomic status (SES) as a factor…

To determine whether patterning instruction was as useful or more useful than other forms of instruction, kindergarten children (age five) were taught either patterning or early literacy or mathematics or social studies in matched sessions. Instruction was conducted in 15-minute sessions from November through mid-April. Posttests on patterning,…

Although mathematics development research has become more prominent in the school psychology literature in recent years, a large research gap in this area exists regarding English language learners (ELLs). Significant research in education, cognitive science, and psychology has been devoted to understanding the links between language and…

Children with higher levels of executive function (EF) skills consistently demonstrate higher levels of academic achievement. Despite the consistency of these associations, fundamental questions remain about whether efforts to improve an individual child's EF skills result in corresponding improvements in his or her academic performance. In the…

Social mastery motivation and parental response are important correlates of children's vocabulary and self-regulation skills, but little research has examined their relationships collectively. This study investigated the direct relationships among social mastery motivation (active interaction and positive affect frequencies), parental response,…