Executive function (EF) is an early cognitive skill that rapidly develops during the preschool years. One of the common EF issues in young children is inhibitory control. This study investigates the impact of music-movement activities on children's inhibitory control. We designed the music-movement training (MMT) program for preschoolers to…

Cognitive abilities are essential to children's overall growth; thus, the implementation of early and effective training interventions is a major challenge for developmental psychologists and teachers. This study explores whether an intervention simultaneously operating on fluid reasoning (FR), visuospatial, narrative, and motor abilities could…

Children start preschool with large individual differences in their early numerical abilities. Little is known about the importance of heterogeneous patterns that exist within these individual differences. A person-centered analytic approach might be helpful to unravel these patterns and the cognitive and environmental factors that are associated…

In this article, Cybele Raver and Clancy Blair explore a group of cognitive processes called executive function (EF)--including the flexible control of attention, the ability to hold information through working memory, and the ability to maintain inhibitory control. EF processes are crucial for young children's learning. On the one hand, they can…

Executive functions (EFs), important cognitive processes that enable goal-directed behavior, develop due to maturation and environmental stimulation. The current study systematically reviews and synthesizes evidence on the association between teacher-student interactions and EFs. The search resulted in 28 studies, from which 23 studies provided…

Because math knowledge begins to develop at a young age to varying degrees, it is important to identify foundational cognitive and academic skills that might contribute to its development. The current study focused on two important, but often overlooked skills that recent evidence suggests are important contributors to early math development:…

This study established the effects of a researcher-developed curriculum-based intervention programme. The intervention was grounded on principles of Feuerstein's ideas about 'mediated learning'. The aim of the intervention was specifically to address children's executive functions, which are generally regarded as prerequisites for cognitive…

This study examined developmental associations between growth in domain-general cognitive processes (working memory and attention control) and growth in domain-specific skills (emergent literacy and numeracy) across the prekindergarten year and their relative contributions to kindergarten reading and math achievement. One hundred sixty-four Head…

Data were generally consistent with the view that preschoolers and elementary schoolers can respond to memory probes by applying arithmetical processing to running gist from recently solved problems. Discussed are two competing interpretations of the development of working memory: fuzzy-trace theory and the generic-resources hypothesis. (Author/RH)

This paper proposes a method to measure and understand prereader listening comprehension skills. The listening span test taxes storage and processing functions of working memory. Used in two experiments with 44 preschoolers, this test had greater predictive and theoretical value than both the traditional word span measure and the age variable.…