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…

This study was conducted to investigate whether a translated and adapted conversational training programme enhances emotion understanding in preschool children. Given the lack of such research in Pakistan (and outside the West in general), the training study reported here was conceived to fill this gap. Thirty-nine 5- to 6-year-olds at two school…

Executive functions enable an individual to initiate and stop actions, track and modify behavior, and plan imminent behavior when faced with specific tasks and circumstances. This study, therefore, identified a connection between the executive functions and management efficacy of academic leaders of a State University in the Philippines. The…

Attention difficulty is associated with poor performance on executive functioning (EF) tasks, yet EF is enhanced in bilingual children. However, no research to date has investigated the possible interaction between bilingualism and attention ability in children to determine the consequences for EF when both are present. We assessed a sample of…

This study used daily diary methodology to examine the association between executive functions and daily mood, as mediated by daily coping, among low-income Latino adolescents. Fifty-eight middle school students (53% male, X-bar[subscript age] = 13.31 years, 95% Latino) completed baseline measures assessing demographic characteristics and…

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…

Background: Problematic alcohol use is associated with neuropsychological consequences, including cognitive biases. The goal of the study was to explore the moderating role of executive control and readiness to change on the relationship between alcohol use and cognitive biases in light and problematic drinkers with and without mild to borderline…

Previously, a total of 121 children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) performed an adaptive working memory (WM)-training, an adaptive flexibility-training, or a non-adaptive control (mock)-training. Despite overall improvement, there were minor differences between the adaptive and mock-training conditions. Moreover, dropout was relatively…

We propose that attraction errors in agreement production (e.g., the key to the cabinets are missing) are related to two components of executive control: working memory and inhibitory control. We tested 138 children aged 10 to 12, an age when children are expected to produce high rates of errors. To increase the potential of individual variation…

Many adolescent learners have difficulty understanding the relevance of mathematics for their lives. This problem is particularly pernicious among Black and Latino adolescents who often face cultural stigma that can affect their perceived value of mathematics. The present study used concurrent nested mixed methods to explore this issue in 419…

Most of the individual difference variance in the population is found "within" families, yet studying the processes causing this variation is difficult due to confounds between genetic and nongenetic influences. Quasi-experiments can be used to test hypotheses regarding environment exposure (e.g., timing, duration) while controlling for…

This study investigated how resource-demanding reading tasks and stressful conditions affect 1st-language (L1) and intermediate 2nd-language (L2) reading comprehension. Using the attentional control theory framework (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), we investigated the roles of central executive working memory (WM) resources,…

Mind wandering--mentation unrelated to one's current activity and surroundings--is a ubiquitous phenomenon, but seemingly competing ideas have been proposed regarding its relation to executive cognitive processes. The control-failure hypothesis postulates that executive processes prevent mind wandering, whereas the global availability hypothesis…

The present study sets out to explore the distinctive roles played by two working memory (WM) components in various aspects of L2 task-based speech planning and performance. A group of 40 post-intermediate proficiency level Chinese EFL learners took part in the empirical study. Following the tenets and basic principles of the…

Executive functions are crucial for efficient daily functioning. However, the contribution of executive functions to the participation in daily life activities of children, have been inadequately studied. The study aimed to examine the unique contribution of executive functions, beyond motor ability, to the diversity and independence of children's…