The purpose of this study is to investigate the relations among children's symbolic functioning at 15 months, joint attention at 24 months, expressive communication at 24 and 36 months, and executive functioning at 36 months. With the sample from rural areas in the United States collected by the Family Life Project (N = 1,008), a longitudinal data…

Adolescents' (n = 342, 169 boys) general algebra and algebra word problems performance were assessed in 9th grade as were intelligence, academic achievement, working memory, and spatial abilities in prior grades. The adolescents reported on their academic attitudes and anxiety and their teachers reported on their in-class attentive behavior in 7th…

Recent research suggests that bilinguals might exhibit advantages in several areas of executive function, including working memory, inhibitory control, and attentional control. However, few studies have examined potential bilingual advantages within lower socioeconomic status (SES) populations. Here we addressed this gap in the literature by…

The purpose of the study is to examine the role of spatial ability and attention shifting in reading of illustrated science texts. Thirty-five fourth/fifth elementary students read two science texts. Prior knowledge and retention/transfer learning outcomes were measured using researcher-developed measures. While reading, students' eye movements…

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…

The present study aimed to investigate early interrelationships between temperament, short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM), while also relating them to incipient anxious traits in a sample of 4-7-year-olds. Preschoolers were evaluated using verbal and visuospatial STM and WM tasks, while parental reports were used to assess children's…

Mathematical giftedness (MG) is an intriguing phenomenon, the nature of which has yet to be sufficiently explored. This study goes a step further in understanding how MG is related to expertise in mathematics (EM) and general giftedness (G). Cognitive testing was conducted among 197 high school students with different levels of G and of EM. Based…

Purpose: Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have weaknesses in executive functioning (EF), specifically in tasks testing interference control and working memory. It is unknown how EF develops in children with DLD, if EF abilities are related to DLD severity and persistence, and if EF weaknesses expand to selective attention.…

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by a complex maturation process of various cognitive abilities. Cognitive control, which includes response inhibition and working memory, is one of them. A typical study on response inhibition to visual stimuli presents distractors and targets on the same display (e.g., the computer screen).…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a computer-based executive function (EF) training in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Ten children with SLI, ages 8 to 12 years, completed a 25-session training of visuospatial working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility over a 6-week period. Treatment outcome was…

We determined how various cognitive abilities, including several measures of a proposed domain-specific number sense, relate to mathematical competence in nearly 100 9-year-old children with normal reading skill. Results are consistent with an extended number processing network and suggest that important processing nodes of this network are…

The ability to flexibly allocate attention to goal-relevant information is pivotal for the completion of high-level cognitive processes. For instance, in comprehending illustrated texts, the reader permanently has to switch the attentional focus between the text and the corresponding picture in order to extract relevant information from both…

The relevance of the investigated problem is caused by the fact that most children who start to study do not have a good level of higher mental functions. It leads to difficulties at school and health problems. The article aims at estimating the level of higher mental functions and the degree of educational motivation development among…

Children who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) face difficulty in classroom situations due to their lessened ability to learn by conventional methods. Children with ADHD excel in some tasks, but perform poorly in others because of differences in the ways that their brains acquire and retain information. Slower learning pace,…

Previous research on the control of visuospatial attention showed that overlearned symbols like arrows have the potential to induce involuntary shifts of attention. Following work on the role of attentional control settings and of the content of working memory in the involuntary deployment of visuospatial attention, Pratt and Hommel (2003) found…