Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine potential mediators of the relationship between developmental language disorder (DLD) status and executive function performance. Method: Participants included preschoolers, of whom 80 met the diagnostic criteria for DLD and 103 were categorized as having typical language abilities. Participants'…

By using a three-time longitudinal design, the present study focuses on three components of executive function (EF), respectively, to examine whether the relation between EF and receptive vocabulary was reciprocal and whether the direction of the above relation would differ by EF components and child gender. A total of 320 Chinese preschool…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of parental sensitivity in language and neurocognitive outcomes in children who are deaf and/or hard of hearing (DHH). Method: Sixty-two parent-child dyads of children with normal hearing (NH) and 64 of children who are DHH (3-8 years) completed parent and child measures of inhibitory…

Listening narrative comprehension is a complex process that requires the processing of explicit (i.e., information presented in the text) and implicit information (i.e., information inferable from the text) and involves several linguistic and cognitive skills. However, the specific role of these skills in children's comprehension remains unclear.…

Purpose: Using a new measure of family-level executive functioning (EF; the Family Characteristics Scale [FCS]), we investigated associations between family-level EF, spoken language, and neurocognitive skills in children with hearing loss (HL), compared to children with normal hearing. Method: Parents of children with HL (n = 61) or children with…

Motor skills have been linked to language and social development with implications for theory of mind. This study examined theory of mind (attribution of intentions task) in school-age children (N = 62, mean age 8 years; 2 months, standard deviation [SD] = 1;3) in relation to fine motor skills (grooved pegboard), receptive vocabulary (Peabody…

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) and the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AIAN FACES) are separate studies done successively over time. One goal for these studies is to provide a national picture of children's readiness for school. In this research brief, the authors use…

Purpose: This study examined whether older adults remain perceptually flexible when presented with ambiguities in speech in the absence of lexically disambiguating information. We expected older adults to show less perceptual learning when top-down information was not available. We also investigated whether individual differences in executive…

Research Findings: Promoting inhibitory control in preschoolers could increase the likelihood of positive developmental trajectories. Nevertheless, to date only a limited number of studies have focused on inhibitory control training, reporting mixed results. To examine the efficacy and the transfer effects of the training on preschoolers, seven…

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been characterized as having deficits in social communication and empathy which present difficulties in the areas of social reciprocity, sharing of emotions and developing and maintaining relationships. This study explores the associations between vocabulary, executive function…

Executive function (EF) skills play a crucial role in young children's academic and social-emotional development. Given that factors associated with poverty can compromise the development of EF skills, it is vital to continue to examine what factors help predict and support EF skills in children from at-risk backgrounds. Using a sample of Head…

Research on the screen time of young children and its relationship to their cognitive and social development is controversial. Based on a stratified, random sample of 579 five-year-old children in Guangdong, China, this study explores the relationship between the screen time of Chinese children and their cognitive and social development.…

Bilingual experience has an impact on an individual's linguistic processing and general cognitive abilities. The relation between these linguistic and non-linguistic domains, in turn, is mediated by individual linguistic proficiency and developmental changes that take place across the lifespan. This study evaluated this relationship by assessing…

Working memory (WM) is a recognised component of executive function and has undergone scrutiny in terms of bilingual and monolingual performance comparisons. Research to date, however, has not consistently replicated the presence of bilingual advantage. The present study examined short-term (STM) and WM in immersion-educated children and a matched…

Research Findings: The contribution of 3 executive function skills (shifting, inhibitory control, and working memory) and their relation to early mathematical skills was investigated with preschoolers attending 6 Head Start centers. Ninety-two children ranging in age from 3 years, 1 month, to 4 years, 11 months, who were native English or Spanish…