Neural substrates of early executive function development

Executive Function and Higher-Order Cognition: Definition and Neural Substrates

Early executive function predicts reasoning development.

Analogical reasoning is a core cognitive skill that distinguishes humans from all other species and contributes to general fluid intelligence, creativity, and adaptive learning capacities. Yet its origins are not well understood. In the study reported here, we analyzed large-scale longitudinal data from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development to test predictors of growth in analogic...

An Embodied Account of Early Executive-Function Development

The importance of executive functioning for later life outcomes, along with its potential to be positively affected by intervention programs, motivates the need to find early markers of executive functioning. In this study, 18-month-olds performed three executive-function tasks-involving simple inhibition, working memory, and more complex inhibition-and a motion-capture task assessing prospecti...

The development of executive function in early childhood.

According to the Cognitive Complexity and Control (CCC) theory, the development of executive function can be understood in terms of age-related increases in the maximum complexity of the rules children can formulate and use when solving problems. This Monograph describes four studies (9 experiments) designed to test hypotheses derived from the CCC theory and from alternative theoretical perspec...

The Development of Executive Function

condition but showed no difference between games in the object condition, the children showed no difference between games in the abstract condition but made fewer errors in Game 1 of the object condition. This effect was larger for the younger children. The Effects of Verbal and Nonverbal Ability in the SOPT A significant main effect of condition suggests that verbal factors are playing a role ...