Executive functions

Last update: January 2013

Topic Editor:
J. Bruce Morton, PhD, University of Western Ontario, Canada

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Table of content
Synthesis 5

Brain Development and Executive Functioning 8

KATIE KNAPP, MSC, J. BRUCE MORTON, PHD, JANUARY 2013

Executive Functioning During Infancy and Childhood 15

YUKO MUNAKATA, PHD, LAURA MICHAELSON, BA, JANE BARKER, MPA, NICOLAS CHEVALIER, PHD, JANUARY 2013

Executive Function and Emotional Development 21

M. ROSARIO RUEDA, PHD, 2PEDRO M. PAZ-ALONSO, PHD, JANUARY 2013
1

The Relation between Executive Functioning and Social Cognition 28

JEANNETTE BENSON, MA, MARK A. SABBAGH, PHD, JANUARY 2013

Socioeconomic Status and the Development of Executive Function 35

CAYCE J. HOOK, BA, GWENDOLYN M. LAWSON, BA, MARTHA J. FARAH, PHD, JANUARY 2013

Executive Functions in the Classroom 42

CLANCY BLAIR, PHD, JANUARY 2013

Reflections on the Development of Executive Function: Commentary on 48

Knapp and Morton, Munakata et al., Rueda and Paz-Alonso, Benson and
Sabbagh, Hook et al., and Blair
PHILIP DAVID ZELAZO, PHD, JANUARY 2013

Protective Role of Executive Function Skills in High-Risk Environments 55

AMANDA J. WENZEL, BA, MEGAN R. GUNNAR, PHD, APRIL 2013

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Cognitive Control and Self-Regulation in Young Children: Ways to Improve 61
Them and Why [Slideshow]
ADELE DIAMOND, PHD, FRSC, JANUARY 2013

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Topic funded by:

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Synthesis

How important is it?

Executive functions are the cognitive abilities needed to control and regulate our thoughts,
emotions and actions. A distinction is sometimes made between the “cool” component of
executive functions which strictly involves cognitive skills (e.g., the ability to do mental
arithmetic), and the “hot” component, which reflects the ability to regulate emotions (e.g., being
able to control anger).

Executive functions can be divided into three broad categories of skills:

Self-control: The ability to resist doing something tempting in order to do the proper thing.
This ability helps children pay attention, act less impulsively and stay focused on their work.

Working memory: The ability to keep information in mind where it can be manipulated. This
skill is necessary to perform cognitive tasks such as relate topics to one another, mental
calculation, and decide what needs to get done in order of priority.

Cognitive flexibility: This involves creative thinking and flexible adjustments to changing
requests. This ability assists children in using their imagination and creativity to solve
problems.

Executive function abilities are critically important for development as illustrated by the fact that
early differences in executive functions longitudinally predict important developmental outcomes,
including academic achievement, health behaviours and social adjustment.

What do we know?

Executive functions take time to develop to their full potential, and this is partly explained by the
slow maturation of prefrontal cortex. Changes in executive functions are apparent when children
become able to remind themselves what the important goals are (e.g., finish one’s homework
rather than watch television). Improvements in executive functions are also seen when children
develop the ability to analyze their environment to decide what is the appropriate plan of action
(e.g., studying tonight is crucial for success in tomorrow’s exam). Underdeveloped executive
functions may explain why young children often appear hard-headed when refusing to follow

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logical instructions such as putting on a hat in the winter. Children from poor economic
background are particularly at risk for experiencing executive function difficulties.

Given the long maturation process of executive function skills, children are acutely sensitive to
early experiences that can either hinder or boost their abilities. Stress, for instance, can be so
damaging to a young child’s executive functions that it can lead to a misdiagnosis of ADHD. On
the other hand, enhancing experiences, such as a positive parent-child relationship, can protect
children against the negative effect of stressful circumstances, such as living in poor economic
conditions, and consequently improve executive functioning. Children of responsive parents who
use gentle rather than harsh discipline and who are supportive of their child’s autonomy also tend
to have better executive function skills.

High executive functioning is linked to several positive outcomes such as competency in the
social, emotional and academic domains. In fact, they predict early school success better than
intelligence, early numeracy and literacy. Executive function skills appear to enable children to
navigate their constantly changing environment, which may be especially key for children
developing in high-risk environments. Executive function efficiency predicts health, economic
prosperity and few criminal acts in later life. Specific components of executive functions are also
responsible for children’s ability to understand other people’s minds. For instance, response
conflict-executive functioning (RC-EF) is strongly predictive of children’s false belief
understanding, the notion that others can have beliefs about the world that are different than
one’s own, which is a required skill for successful social interactions.

While there are several benefits to strong executive function abilities, poor executive functioning
is characteristic of a number of disorders such as ADHD, behaviour problems, learning difficulties,
autism and depression. Early problems with executive functions are also likely to persist
throughout childhood and adolescence.

What can be done?

There are several benefits to helping preschool children improve their executive function skills.
Intervention programs focusing on executive function training are efficient at enhancing children’s
school success and socio-emotional skills, and can lead to changes in brain circuitry. Early
intervention may also attenuate the rate and the difficulties associated with disorders such as
ADHD and behaviour problems. Executive function training is inexpensive and can be

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implemented in the regular classroom with children as young as 4 or 5 years of age. Modifications
to existing early childhood curricula should include enjoyable and challenging activities that focus
on self-regulation. Yoga, music, aerobics, dancing, meditation, story-telling, martial arts are all
examples of activities that can help improve core executive function abilities. In the classroom,
children should engage in more active learning and small-group activities, and spend less time in
large group activities. Children with better executive functions require less negative interventions
from teachers, which helps create a stress-free environment that further nurtures the
development of executive functions. Young children should also be encouraged to participate in
elaborate forms of play, such as social pretend play where they learn to take on roles and adapt to
ever-changing plot.

It is also essential to understand that executive function skills are acquired gradually through the
years and that even a highly motivated child can struggle with instructions such as not eating a
cookie before supper, or concentrating for a long period of time.

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Brain Development and Executive Functioning
Katie Knapp, MSc, J. Bruce Morton, PhD

Western University, Canada

January 2013

Introduction

Executive functions are processes that support many everyday activities, including planning,
flexible thinking, focused attention and behavioural inhibition, and show continued development
into early adulthood.1,2 One important backdrop to the development of these psychological abilities
is the structural and functional development of the brain.3,4,5,6 Among the slowest developing brain
regions is the prefrontal cortex, a large expanse of cortex located in the front half of the brain.
Remarkably, this region of the brain continues to develop into the third decade of life.7,8 Brain
imaging research9,10 and studies of patients with brain damage11,12,13 suggest that the prefrontal
cortex is vital for controlling attention, thinking and behaviour, in part because it bridges
perceptual, emotional and motor control centres located elsewhere in brain. The fact that
prefrontal cortex is both slow to develop14,15 and important for executive control has led to the
suggestion that the development of executive functioning is closely related to the maturation of
the prefrontal cortex.16,17,18 One implication is that basic everyday challenges, such as not playing
with a forbidden toy, will be difficult even for normally-developing children.

Subject

Understanding that the prefrontal cortex is important for behavioural self-regulation and develops
gradually may provide insight into why, for example, children have difficulty: (a) stopping one
activity and switching to a new one; (b) planning ahead; (c) doing more than one thing at a time;
(d) concentrating for long periods of time; and (e) foregoing immediate rewards. Findings from
developmental cognitive neuroscience research suggests these behaviours are a normal part of
growing up and are rooted to some degree in how the brain works at this stage in life.

Problems

Understanding precisely how the development of the prefrontal cortex contributes to advances in
executive functioning is extremely challenging. First, executive functions are difficult to precisely

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define and measure, in part because core concepts such as inhibition and cognitive flexibility
actually do more to describe than explain behaviour. Second, it is unclear whether processes
involved in regulating one kind of behaviour, such as language, are the same as those involved in
regulating other kinds of behaviour, such as the emotions. Third, tasks that are appropriate for
testing executive functioning at one age will not typically be suitable for testing executive
functioning in older children. This makes it difficult to compare executive functioning in children of
different ages. Ultimately though, developmental cognitive neuroscientists are interested in
linking age-related changes in executive functioning with developmental changes in brain
function. To achieve this, it is necessary to not only adequately define and measure executive
functioning, but to simultaneously collect a direct measure of brain function. One approach is
functional magnetic resonance imaging (or fMRI), a safe and relatively non-invasive means of
probing changes in brain activity that occur as people perform certain tasks. While viable and safe
for use even with newborn infants,19,20 fMRI requires that participants remain very still for at least 5
to 10 minutes while the images are acquired. Abrupt movements 5 to 10 mm can render images
noisy and virtually uninterpretable. Complicating matters further, if young children perform the
prescribed tasks differently than older children, it becomes impossible to know whether age-
related differences in patterns of brain activity relate solely to differences in the age of the
participants or additionally to differences in the way younger and older children performed the
tasks. Put simply, instructing 7-year-olds to perform a task in the way 4-year-olds do could, in
principle, cause patterns of brain activity in 7-year-olds to look indistinguishable from those
observed in 4-year-olds. To mitigate these problems, researchers are developing new imaging
protocols that can be administered quickly and do not require children to perform a task. In these
so-called resting-state scans, children simply lay still for as little at five minutes with their eyes
open.21 Resulting images are used to probe for age-related changes in “intrinsic” patterns of
cortical connectivity, which then can be associated with measures of executive functioning
collected outside the MRI scanner.

Research Context

Findings from fMRI studies of executive functioning development paint a fascinating but complex
picture. Some studies, for example, report that younger children show less prefrontal cortex (PFC)
activity in the context of executive function tasks than do older participants, findings that are
consistent with the intuition that as a brain region functionally develops, it shows more robust
activity and executive functioning improves.22,23 Other findings suggest a slightly more complicated

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story, insofar as some regions of PFC exhibit increasing activity with increasing age, while others
show decreasing activity with increasing age.24,25,26 One interpretation of this pattern is that early in
life, executive functioning is associated with weak but diffuse PFC activity, whereas later in
development, executive functioning is associated with robust but focal PFC activity.26 Thus, at the
centre of a developing region, activity increases with age, whereas in the surround, activity
decreases with increasing age. Another interpretation is that certain regions within PFC become
more efficient with increasing age. Thus, early in development, these regions need to work very
hard to support a certain level of executive functioning performance. However, later in
development when these regions function more efficiently, they can support a comparable level of
executive functioning performance with less energy expenditure. Clearly, more research is
required to clarify this complex picture.

One consistent finding from developmental fMRI investigations of executive functioning

performance is that there are many additional regions outside of the PFC linked to the
development of executive functioning performance, including anterior cingulate, anterior insula,
parietal and motor cortices.27,28 One interpretation of this evidence is that executive functioning
performance tasks are very complex and involve many different subprocesses such as holding
instructions in mind,27,29,30 attending to some stimuli and ignoring others,22 planning and executing
motor responses,26 and evaluating performance feedback. It is possible then that executive
functioning tasks are associated with activity in many brain regions because the tasks themselves
involve many different subprocesses, each of which is associated with activity in a different brain
region. If this is true, then the challenge moving forward is to identify which subprocesses are
subject to age-related change, and to link these changes with changes in the function of specific
brain regions. A second interpretation is that PFC does not function independently, but forms part
of a broader, functionally homogenous, network. On this view, regardless of whether a participant
is holding instructions in mind, planning a response, or evaluating feedback, robust activity will be
observed throughout the entire network. If this is true, then the challenge moving forward is to
identify how the organization of the larger network changes over development. Possibilities
include changes in the regions comprising the larger network as well as changes in the number
and strength of connections between constituent regions.

Key Research Questions

1. What are the constituent processes underlying executive functioning task performance?

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 2. Are different executive functioning’s uniquely linked to different brain regions?

3. How do changes in brain function contribute to changes in executive functioning?

Recent Research Results

Recently, researchers have begun examining developmental changes in brain networks thought to
be important for executive functioning, by examining changes in connections between PFC and
other regions commonly associated with executive functioning such as the parietal, cingulate and
insular cortices.28 As these networks can be observed and measured even while participants are at
rest, many recent studies have used so-called resting-state fMRI to probe the organization of
cognitive control networks at different ages.31,32 Initial findings suggested widespread network
reorganization of over development, with new long-range connections forming and pre-existing
short-range connections being taken away as children grow older.33 More recent evidence has
called these initial findings into question, and suggests the re-organization of executive
functioning networks over development may be less pronounced than originally thought.34
However, despite these initial missteps, the study of network organization over development
continues to attract attention as researchers increasingly recognize that brain regions work
together to realize high-level thoughts and actions.

Research Gaps

Perhaps the most significant research gap in fMRI research on the development of executive
functioning is evidence from longitudinal studies. Unlike cross-sectional studies, in which one
group of younger children is compared with a different group of older children, longitudinal studies
compare the same group of children at different ages. Needless to say, longitudinal studies are
very expensive, take a long time to conduct, and can be very risky, which is the reason why so
little longitudinal evidence currently exists. Still, longitudinal designs afford a number of important
advantages over cross-sectional designs. First, whenever two groups of children of different ages
are compared, there are many factors that could potentially differ between the groups beyond
age, including differences in intelligence, temperament/personality, and socio-economic status, to
name only a few. Given that each of these factors is related to executive functioning, inferences
concerning the importance of age for explaining group differences in patterns of brain activation
become tenuous. Second, an important goal of developmental cognitive neuroscience is to
identify early patterns of psychological and neural organization that predict future states, both
positive (e.g., intellectual and social well-being) and negative (e.g., psychopathology). Identifying

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these patterns is best achieved when the same group of children is followed repeatedly over time
until the outcome of interest (e.g., giftedness, addiction, risky sexual behaviour, etc.) is observed
in some children. Only then can one go back and see which brain or behavioural measure
collected earlier in time successfully predict future outcomes.

Conclusions

The brain takes the first two decades of life to develop to adult levels. During this time, different
regions of the brain develop at different rates. Alongside these regional changes, the connections
between brain regions also develop gradually over the course of childhood and adolescence. In
conjunction with these developments in brain structure and function are advances in the ability to
perform executive functioning tasks. Children show gradual improvements in their ability to plan
ahead, to switch between tasks and to inhibit a response when instructed to do so. The study of
brain networks and their development may offer a useful avenue for quantifying the relationship
between brain development and the maturation of executive functioning. The frontal and parietal
cortices need to communicate in order to effectively perform executive functioning tasks.
Effective communication between these regions is not fully developed until late adolescence, and
this may explain why executive functioning abilities do not mature until late in the second decade
of life.

Implications for Parents, Services and Policy

We need to remember that children’s brains are a work in progress. Whether we measure, grey
matter thickness, white matter volume, synaptic density, or any other anatomical feature of the
brain, continued change will be observed well into early adulthood. These changes will obviously
impact a child’s cognitive functioning, and this will be particularly true of executive functioning,
given the complexity of the processes involved. Given the importance of executive functioning for
academic achievement and social well-being, identifying problems in cognitive and behavioural
self-regulation early-on is clearly important. At the same time, all young children will struggle to
plan ahead, resist temptations, regulate their emotions and stay on task: it’s just the way the
brain works at this age.

References

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2. Luna B, Garver KR, Urban TA, Lazar, NA, Sweeney JA.Maturation of cognitive processes from late childhood to adulthood.
Child Dev. 2004;75(5):1357-1372.

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 3. Shaw P, Kabani, NJ, Lerch JP, et al. Neurodevelopmental trajectories of the human cerebral cortex. J Neurosci.
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4. Huttenlocher PR, de Courten C, Garey LJ, Van der Loos H. Synaptogenesis in human visual cortex – evidence for synapse
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5. Giedd JN, Blumenthal J, Jeffries NO, et al. Brain development during childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal MRI study.
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8. Huttenlocher PR. Dendritic and synaptic development in human cerebral cortex: Time course and critical periods. Dev
Neuropsychol. 1999;16(3):347-349.

9. Lie C, Specht K, Marshall JC, Fink GR. Using fMRI to decompose the neural processes underlying the Wisconsin Card Sorting
Test. Neuroimage. 2006;30(3):1038-1049.

10. Aarts E, Roelofs A, van Turennout M. Attentional control of task and response in lateral and medial frontal cortex: Brain
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19. Smyser CD, Inder TE, Shimony JS, et al. Longitudinal analysis of neural network development in preterm infants. Cereb
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 23. Luna B, Thulborn KR, Munoz DP, et al. Maturation of widely distributed brain function subserves cognitive development.
Neuroimage. 2001;13(5):786-793.

24. Morton JB, Bosma R, Ansari D. Age-related changes in brain activation associated with dimensional shifts of attention: An
fMRI study. Neuroimage, 2009;46(1):249-256.

25. Bunge SA, Dudukovic NM, Thomason ME, Vaidya CJ, Gabrieli JDE. Immature frontal lobe contributions to cognitive control in
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26. Casey BJ, Trainor RJ, Orendi JL, et al. A developmental functional MRI study of prefrontal activation during performance of a
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Executive Functioning During Infancy and
Childhood
Yuko Munakata, PhD, Laura Michaelson, BA, Jane Barker, MPA, Nicolas Chevalier, PhD

University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

January 2013

Introduction

Executive functions refer to a set of cognitive processes that support the regulation of thoughts,
emotions and behaviours. Executive functions help us to achieve goals in our daily lives, whether
planning a vacation, controlling anger or multi-tasking. They develop dramatically during infancy
and childhood,1,2 and predict later success in school, health and income.3 They are also trainable
under certain conditions.4 At the same time, executive functions are highly heritable,5 meaning
that genetic differences between individuals contribute to differences between individuals in
executive functions. Moreover, these differences are stable across development:6,7 Low executive
functioning in childhood predicts low executive functioning decades later. Impairments in
executive functions are observed in children from backgrounds of low socioeconomic status8 and
in a variety of clinical disorders, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,9 autism10 and
depression.11

Subject

Limits in executive functioning can lead children to seem stubborn or mischievous, like when they
insist that they don’t need a jacket to go play in the snow, or reach for a cookie despite being able
to repeat the instruction that they cannot have one until after dinner. Executive functions are
predictive of later life outcomes. Individual differences in executive functioning at kindergarten
entry predict later academic achievement, and may be more critical to early success than
familiarity with numbers and letters.12-14 Self-regulatory behaviours predict social skills,
relationships with teachers and peers, school engagement, health, wealth and criminality later in
life.3,15 Under certain conditions, executive functions may be trainable. Preschool programs
developed to improve cognitive and behavioural school readiness have led to improvements in
executive functions, as have a variety of interventions in primary school.16-18 Aerobics, martial arts,
yoga, dance and targeted game play interventions have also been associated with executive

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function improvements in children.4 Training interventions may help to reduce or eliminate the
executive function deficits observed in children from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds,19,20
though ecological studies examining population-level intervention effects are, as yet, forthcoming.

Problems

Executive functions are complex, leading to challenges in measuring and in tracking

developmental changes in them. They span a variety of higher-level cognitive processes, including
planning, decision-making, maintaining and manipulating information in working memory,
monitoring the environment for goal-relevant information, shifting from one task to another, and
inhibiting unwanted thoughts, feelings and actions. In addition, these higher-level processes rely
upon lower-level cognitive, perceptual and motor processes, making it difficult to measure
executive functions purely.21,22 For example, a person’s ability to resist chocolate while on a diet
reflects not only their ability to inhibit the urge to eat it, but also their hunger and reasons for
dieting. This difficulty in measuring executive functions purely also leads to difficulty in measuring
changes in them across development. Lower-level processes are developing as well as executive
functions, making it challenging to design executive function measures that can be used with
people of a variety of ages. For example, changes in inhibition from infancy to adulthood could not
be tracked by measuring changes in the ability to stick to a diet! As a result, researchers have
often used different measures of executive functioning with different age groups, for example,
measuring infant inhibition in the context of maintaining attention in the face of distractors,23 and
children’s inhibition in the context of a Simon Says type game, where an adult’s behaviours are
usually imitated but sometimes the opposite should be done instead.24 Differences across
measures make it difficult to draw firm conclusions about developmental changes in executive
functioning.

Research Context

The study of executive functions and their development is advancing rapidly. The use of
neuroscience methods, including functional neuroimaging, electroencephalography, and
computational models, are providing insights into the brain changes that support the development
of executive functioning.2,25-27 To address the issue of task impurity, researchers have developed
sets of tasks that share executive functioning demands but differ in other ways. For example, a
set of inhibition tasks might include one task that requires children to focus their gaze on
something and inhibit the urge to look toward something distracting, and another task that

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requires children to say the color of a word on a screen (e.g., the word “green” printed in blue ink)
and refrain from reading the word itself. Statistical techniques can be used to extract what is
common in performance across those tasks, providing a more pure measure of executive
functions.5 To address the difficulty in comparing executive functioning across ages, researchers
have developed measures that can be changed slightly to manipulate executive function
demands, while keeping all other aspects of the task the same. For example, in a task where
children are required to inhibit the urge to look toward something distracting, the number of
distracting things might be increased with age. Such measures provide sensitivity across a broad
range of ages, allowing researchers look at quantitative changes in performance to track
executive function development.1

Key Research Questions

1. What developments are observed in executive functions during infancy and childhood?

2. What drives these developments?

3. Why do executive functions predict later functioning and general intelligence?

Recent Research Results

The component processes of executive functioning appear to become more specialized during
development: in early childhood, children use the same cognitive processes in all situations that
require control, whereas from middle childhood onwards, those processes progressively specialize
into components such as suppressing a usual action or switching between multiple tasks.21,28,29
Executive functioning also becomes more self-directed (so that children rely progressively less on
other people), and shifts from reactive control (with children adjusting to events as they occur) to
proactive control (with children anticipating and preparing for upcoming events).2 For instance,
younger children may be prone to study for a school exam at the last minute and only when
prompted by parents, whereas older children may start to study ahead of time in anticipation of
potential issues. Changes in executive functioning are driven in part by an increasing ability to
keep appropriate goals in mind (e.g., to keep studying despite the temptation to play video
games), but also by children’s increasing ability to monitor their environment to determine which
behaviours are appropriate (e.g., studying today is important for tomorrow’s exam).30,31 These
improvements are accompanied by stronger activity with age in a broadly distributed neural
network that spans the prefrontal cortex, the parietal cortex, and the basal ganglia, with increased

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connectivity among these regions and variations in patterns of activation across development.25,27

Research Gaps

To date, we have limited understanding of gene-environment interactions in executive

functioning: how environmental experiences influence the expression of genes that influence
executive functions, and how genetic variables influence environmental characteristics that may
impact executive functions.5 In addition, research has primarily emphasized quantitative changes
in the efficiency of the processes underlying executive functioning, assuming that all children use
the same processes or strategies which are applied more successfully with age. Yet, strategies
may change with age and across children the same age, potentially giving rise to different
developmental pathways of executive functioning. Strategy variability largely remains to be
explored.32,33 Finally, more work is needed to fully understand which brain changes support
changes in executive functioning, particularly during early childhood, and how such brain changes
lead to changes in executive functioning.2

Conclusions

Although executive functions are complex and difficult to measure, significant progress has been
made in understanding these fundamental higher-level cognitive processes during infancy and
childhood – how they change during development, how they influence behaviour, what aspects of
later life outcomes they predict, and what kind of experiences might influence this course of
development. This work has highlighted the essential role of executive functions in children’s
development. Many questions remain to be addressed through further behavioural and
neuroscience research. Such questions include how individual children differ in their
developmental trajectories of executive functioning and the consequences of such variation, why
executive functions predict later life outcomes, and how genetic and environmental influences and
resulting brain changes lead to the dramatic executive function improvements observed across
infancy and childhood. A better understanding of executive function development will be crucial to
the improvement of training programs, intervention strategies, and early diagnostic tools
designed to maximize children’s potential for later academic achievement and success.

Implications for Parents, Services and Policy

When children do things they are not supposed to, or seem to not be listening, they are not
necessarily being stubborn or mischievous. Even when children are highly motivated to behave

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 18

appropriately, limits in their executive functioning can hinder their ability to do so. When
unaddressed, deficits in executive functions predict decreased academic achievement, and may
help to explain persistent gaps in educational achievement between high- and low-socioeconomic
status students. Policymakers faced with limited resources may find it difficult to choose between
available interventions aiming to improve executive functions, however. Data comparing the
efficacy of various interventions are limited, interventions may impact children of different ages
and developmental trajectories differently, and few programs have been scaled up from
demonstration studies to system-wide interventions. Improvements in early diagnostic tools and
efforts to determine the long-term impacts of interventions in early and middle childhood will help
to clarify optimal timing and administration of interventions.

Réferences

1. Beck DM, Schaefer C, Pang K, Carlson SM. Executive function in preschool children: Test–retest reliability. J Cogn Dev.
2011;12(2):169–193.

2. Munakata Y, Snyder H, Chatham C. Developing cognitive control: Three key transitions. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. In press.

3. Moffitt TE, Arseneault L, Belsky D, et al. A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. P Natl
Acad Sci USA. 2011;108(7):2693–2698.

4. Diamond A, Lee K. Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science.
2011;333(6045):959–964.

5. Friedman NP, Miyake A, Young SE, DeFries JC, Corley RP, Hewitt JK. Individual differences in executive functions are almost
entirely genetic in origin. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2008;137(2):201–225.

6. Casey BJ, Somerville LH, Gotlib IH, et al. Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification 40 years later. P Natl Acad
Sci USA. 2011;108(36):14998–15003.

7. Friedman NP, Miyake A, Robinson JL, Hewitt JK. Developmental trajectories in toddlers' self-restraint predict individual
differences in executive functions 14 years later: A behavioral genetic analysis. Dev Psycho. 2011;47(5):1410-1430.

8. Hackman DA, Farah MJ. Socioeconomic status and the developing brain. Trends Cogn Sci. 2009;13(2):65–73.

9. Willcutt EG, Doyle AE, Nigg JT, Faraone SV, Pennington BF. Validity of the executive function theory of Attention-
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A meta-analytic review. Biol Psychiat. 2005;57(11):1336–1346.

10. Hughes C, Russell J, Robbins TW. Evidence for executive dysfunction in autism. Neuropsychologia. 1994;32(4):477–492.

11. Snyder HR, under review. Executive function is broadly impaired in major depressive disorder: A meta-analysis and review.

12. Blair C, Razza RP. Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and
literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Dev. 2007;78(2):647–663.

13. Heaviside S, Farris E. Public school kindergarten teachers' views on children's readiness for school (NCES No. 93-410).
Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

14. Rimm-Kaufman SE, Pianta RC, Cox MJ. Teachers' judgments of problems in the transition to kindergarten. Early Child Res Q.
2000;15(2):147–166.

15. Eisenberg N, Valiente C, Eggum ND. Self-regulation and school readiness. Early Educ Dev. 2010;21(5):681–698.

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 16. Bierman KL, Nix RL, Greenberg MT, Blair C, Domitrovich CE. Executive functions and school readiness intervention: Impact,
moderation, and mediation in the Head Start REDI program. Dev Psychopathol. 2008;20(3):821–843.

17. Riggs NR, Greenberg MT, Kusché CA, Pentz MA. The mediational role of neurocognition in the behavioral outcomes of a
social-emotional prevention program in elementary school students: Effects of the PATHS Curriculum. Prev Sci.
2006;7(1):91–102.

18. Thorell LB, Lindqvist S, Bergman Nutley S, Bohlin G, Klingberg T. Training and transfer effects of executive functions in
preschool children. Dev Sci. 2009;12(1):106–113.

19. Noble KG, McCandliss BD, Farah MJ. Socioeconomic gradients predict individual differences in neurocognitive abilities. Dev
Sci. 2007;10(4):464–480.

20. Diamond A, Barnett WS, Thomas J, Munro S. Preschool program improves cognitive control. Science.
2007;318(5855):1387–1388.

21. Miyake A, Friedman NP, Emerson MJ, Witzki AH, Howerter A. The unity and diversity of executive functions and their
contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cogn Psychol. 2000;41(1):49–100.

22. Salthouse TA. Relations between cognitive abilities and measures of executive functioning. Neuropsychology.
2005;19(4):532–545.

23. Holmboe K, Pasco Fearon RM, Csibra G, Tucker LA, Johnson MH. Freeze-Frame: A new infant inhibition task and its relation
to frontal cortex tasks during infancy and early childhood. J Exp Child Psychol. 2008;100(2):89–114.

24. Luria AR. Higher cortical functions in man. New York: Basic Books; 1966.

25. Crone EA, Ridderinkhof KR. The developing brain: From theory to neuroimaging and back. Dev Cogn Neurosci.
2011;1(2):101–109.

26. Lamm C, Zelazo PD, Lewis MD. Neural correlates of cognitive control in childhood and adolescence: Disentangling the
contributions of age and executive function. Neuropsychologia. 2006;44(11):2139–2148.

27. Morton JB, Bosma R, Ansari D. Age-related changes in brain activation associated with dimensional shifts of attention: An
fMRI study. Neuroimage. 2009;46(1):249–256.

28. Huizinga M, Dolan CV, van der Molen MW. Age-related change in executive function: Developmental trends and a latent
variable analysis. Neuropsychologia. 2006;44(11):2017–2036.

29. Wiebe SA, Espy KA, Charak D. Using confirmatory factor analysis to understand executive control in preschool children: I.
Latent structure. Dev Psychol. 2008;44(2):575–587.

30. Chevalier N, Blaye A. Setting goals to switch between tasks: Effect of cue transparency on children’s cognitive flexibility.
Dev Psychol. 2009;45(3):782–797.

31. Munakata Y, Herd SA, Chatham CH, Depue BE, Banich MT, O'Reilly RC. A unified framework for inhibitory control. Trends
Cogn Sci. 2011.

32. Hanania R. Two types of perseveration in the Dimension Change Card Sort task. J Exp Child Psychol. 2010;107(3):325–336.

33. Moriguchi Y, Hiraki K. Longitudinal development of prefrontal function during early childhood. Dev Cogn Neurosci.
2011;1(2):153–162.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 20

Executive Function and Emotional Development
1
M. Rosario Rueda, PhD, 2Pedro M. Paz-Alonso, PhD
1
Universidad de Granada, Spain, 2Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Spain
January 2013

Introduction

Emotional development involves increased ability to feel, understand and differentiate

progressively more complex emotions, as well as the ability to self-regulate them in order to adapt
to the social environment or to accomplish present or future goals. Often, children face situations
where they must select among competing options, such as finishing homework before playing or
eating a snack now as opposed to saving room for a healthier meal. In making such decisions,
they need to reconcile the conflict between competing choices available in the context with a
specific set of expectations and rules, as well as to regulate impulses for immediate gratification
in the service of a choice that is less immediate and automatic. This sort of behavioural and
cognitive control is related to the concept of executive functions. Executive function refers to
multidimensional cognitive control processes that are characterized by being voluntary and highly
effortful. They include the ability to evaluate, organize and achieve goals, as well as the capacity
to flexibly adapt behaviour when confronted with novel problems and situations. Evidence from
cognitive development and developmental cognitive neuroscience has shown that the
development of emotion regulation is strongly supported by several core executive functions,
such as attention control, inhibition of inappropriate behaviours, decision making and other high
cognitive processes that take place in emotionally demanding contexts.1,2

Subject

As humans are predominantly social, understanding emotions in oneself and others is an

important skill to have, and a good part of the brain is devoted to that effort.3 Basic emotions,
such as happiness or fear differ from the so-called moral emotions (e.g., shame, guilt, pride, etc.),
that arise in social interactions, where a normative or ideal behaviour is either explicitly or
implicitly established. Understanding and managing moral emotions requires internalization of
norms and moral principles shared by the community. It is also necessary to perceive and
understand other people’s emotions (empathy) and make attributions of their mental states

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 21

(theory of mind), including understanding of their beliefs and attitudes. As such, emotional and
social development are tightly linked to one another. Another key component of emotional
development, namely emotion regulation, is not less crucial to socialization. In social activities
(e.g., being at school), it is often necessary to control emotional reactions, either positive (e.g.,
excitement) or negative (e.g., frustration) in order to accommodate to norms and goals.
Therefore, the development of executive control is central to emotion regulation.

Problems

Executive function is often considered a domain-general of cognitive function. This means that it
is involved in regulating all sorts of behaviours, such as those involving language, memory,
reasoning, etc. However, some authors have suggested that emotional, social and motivated
behaviour (e.g., deciding whether to eat a piece of cake or to hug someone we love) may be
harder to control and might even require a different kind of mechanism as compared to
emotionally-neutral conditions (e.g., deciding whether five is an even or odd number). Some
authors have established a distinction between “cool” (purely cognitive) and “hot” (affective)
aspects of executive function.4 Thus, in goal-directed problem-solving, executive function and
emotion regulation bear a reciprocal relation. However, the particular requirements for emotion
regulation will depend on the motivational significance of the problem and whether the problem
itself is hot or cool.1

Research Context

The multidimensional nature of the executive function construct contrasts with the absence of a
specific agreement on a gold-standard test of executive functions despite the highly structured
nature of the tasks typically used to examine different functions separately. A variety of
laboratory tasks are thus used to measure different executive functions, some of which have been
adapted from those used with adults. A general distinction can be made between cool executive
function and hot executive function tasks, depending on whether the task involves dealing with
emotionally-relevant information or not.5 Within this general categorization, tasks can be also
divided according to the particular function they target, for example, working memory, inhibitory
control or mental flexibility. However, given the protracted development of executive function
throughout childhood, a wide variety of tasks are available which are appropriate for children of a
given age range or ability level.6

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 22

Key Research Questions

1. Is emotional development supported by maturation of executive function skills? How is the

development of key aspects of emotional development (e.g., empathy, theory of mind,
internalization of moral principles, etc.) related to maturation of the prefrontal cortex?

2. What factors determine the development of executive function skills?

3. Are individual differences in the development of executive function and emotion regulation
determined by genes, or are they rather related to experience?

4. Is it possible to foster the development of executive function by means of educational

interventions? If so, would enhanced executive function turn into better emotion
development?

Recent Research Results

Evidence from multiple studies indicates that maturation of aspects of executive functioning, such
as inhibitory control and executive attention, are strongly related to increased emotional
understanding (in oneself and others) and regulation. Preschool children’s performance on
laboratory tasks measuring inhibitory control significantly correlates with their ability to regulate
their emotions.7,8 Also, children with higher attention control abilities tend to cope with anger by
using non-hostile verbal methods rather than overt aggressive methods.9 Higher effortful control
also correlates positively with empathy.10 To display empathy toward others requires
interpretation of their signals of distress or pleasure. In fact, the ability to distinguish between
mental states of oneself and others (Theory of Mind, ToM), which is another central cognitive
component of empathy,11 is strongly associated with individual differences in effortful and
inhibitory control.12 However, whether ToM is directly associated with more general emotion
regulation skills during early development is still under debate.13 Additionally, individual
differences in executive control are associated with the development of conscience, which
involves the interplay between experiencing moral emotions and behaving in a way that is
compatible with rules and social norms.14 In this context, internalized control of behaviour is
greater in children high in effortful control.15 The common interpretation is that effortful control
provides the attentional flexibility required to link moral principles, feelings and actions.

In addition to these studies, current lines of research are investigating the factors, both
educational and constitutional, that influence the development of executive function. Training

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 23

studies of different executive functions in preschool and school-aged children have showed direct
benefits on the trained abilities, including executive attention,16,17 fluid reasoning,18,19,20 working
memory21,22,23 and cognitive control.24

Research Gaps

There are future research avenues that have the potential to shed further light on executive
functions and emotional development. Although cross-sectional studies can be very informative,
longitudinal research is needed to rule out possible effects due to individual variance across age
groups. Thus, longitudinal studies can provide important insights regarding typical and atypical
cognitive and emotional development.25 Another important but still unresolved question is to what
extent educational interventions designed to foster executive function can produce stable
changes in the efficiency of this system, both at the structural and functional levels, throughout
development. Some studies have shown benefits of executive function training at the level of
brain function during development,16,17,22,23 which are still observable a few months later without
further training.16 However, more research is needed to further characterize the benefits of
training over time, and whether benefits of executive function training transfer to emotion
regulation skills.

Conclusions

Emotional development involves increased understanding of emotions in oneself and others as

well as increased ability to regulate emotions based on current goals and socially-shared rules.
Changes in emotional function are recognized as playing a critical role on social adjustment and
school competence.26,27 Adaptive development of emotion is linked to child well-being, whereas
difficulties with emotion regulation are related to mood disruptions and behavioural problems.27,28
Emotional development is constructed from a variety of cognitive skills, including the ability to
flexibly regulate behaviour in a voluntary, effortful, mode (executive function), which strongly
depends on maturation of the frontal lobes.29 Cognitive and emotion regulation appear to develop
in concert, showing a strong development during the preschool period and a more protracted
developmental course during late childhood and adolescence.30

Implications for Parents, Services and Policy

Increasing evidence suggests that executive function can be enhanced through cognitive training
and that such interventions have the potential to enhance the efficiency of brain systems

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 24

underpinning behavioural and emotional regulation skills in children16 as well as in adults.23,31,32
Recent research also shows that the development of executive control is affected by
environmental factors, such as parenting and education. The quality of parent-child interactions
during early childhood appears to promote the development of executive function later on.
Parental attitudes such as warmth, responsiveness and gentle discipline, which are related to
secure parent-child attachment and positive mutuality, are related to advanced executive function
skills in the child.33 Likewise, classroom curricula that focus on teaching regulation skills are shown
to significantly increase the development of executive control at preschool ages.24 Plasticity of the
neurocognitive system underlying cognitive and emotional regulation could be related to its
extended maturation during the first two decades of life. Importantly, the susceptibility of this
neurocognitive system to be influenced by a wide range of experiences provides multiple
opportunities to promote children’s social and emotional competence. Research-based data of the
type summarized in this paper must encourage policy makers to promote the use of educational
programs that include curricula directly addressing socio-emotional competence.

References

1. Zelazo, P. D., & Cunningham, W. A. (2007). Executive Function: Mechanisms Underlying Emotion Regulation Handbook of
emotion regulation (pp. 135-158). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

2. Tottenham, N., Hare, T. A., & Casey, B. J. (2011). Behavioral assessment of emotion discrimination, emotion regulation, and
cognitive control in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 39.

3. Olsson, A., & Ochsner, K. N. (2008). The role of social cognition in emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(2), 65-71.

4. Zelazo, P. D., & Müller, U. (2002). Executive function in typical and atypical development. In U. Goswami (Ed.), Handbook of
childhood cognitive development (pp. 445-469). Oxford: Blackwell.

5. Hongwanishkul, D., Happaney, K. R., Lee, W. S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2005). Assessment of Hot and Cool Executive Function in
Young Children: Age-Related Changes and Individual Differences. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28(2), 617-644.

6. Carlson, S. M. (2005). Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental
Neuropsychology, 28(2), 595-616.

7. Carlson, S. M., & Wang, T. S. (2007). Inhibitory control and emotion regulation in preschool children. Cognitive Development
, 22(4), 489-510.

8. Simonds, J., Kieras, J. E., Rueda, M., & Rothbart, M. K. (2007). Effortful control, executive attention, and emotional regulation
in 7-10-year-old children. Cognitive Development, 22(4), 474-488.

9. Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., Nyman, M., Bernzweig, J., & Pinuelas, A. (1994). The relations of emotionality and regulation to
children's anger-related reactions. Child Development, 65(1), 109-128.

10. Rothbart, M. K., Ahadi, S. A., & Hershey, K. L. (1994). Temperament and social behavior in childhood. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 40, 21-39.

11. Decety, J., & Jackson, P.L. (2004). The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience
Review, 3, 71-100.

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 12. Carlson, S. M., Moses, L. J., & Claxton, L. J. (2004). Individual differences in executive functioning and theory of mind: An
investigation of inhibitory control and planning ability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 87(4), 299-319.

13. Liebermann, D., Giesbrecht, G. F., & Muller, U. (2007). Cognitive and emotional aspects of self-regulation in preschoolers.
Cognitive Development, 22(4), 511-529.

14. Kochanska, G., & Aksan, N. (2006). Children's conscience and self-regulation. Journal of Personality, 74(6), 1587-1617.

15. Kochanska, G., Murray, K. T., & Harlan, E. T. (2000). Effortful control in early childhood: Continuity and change,
antecedents, and implications for social development. Developmental Psychology, 36(2), 220-232.

16. Rueda, M. R., Checa, P., & Combita, L. M. (2011). Enhanced efficiency of the executive attention network after training in
preschool children: Immediate and after two months effects. [doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2011.09.004]. Developmental Cognitive
Neuroscience.

17. Rueda, M. R., Rothbart, M. K., McCandliss, B. D., Saccomanno, L., & Posner, M. I. (2005). Training, maturation, and genetic
influences on the development of executive attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA,
102(41), 14931-14936.

18. Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Shah, P. (2011). Short- and long-term benefits of cognitive training. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(25), 10081-10086.

19. Mackey, A. P., Hill, S. S., Stone, S. I., & Bunge, S. A. (2011). Differential effects of reasoning and speed training in children.
Developmental Science, 14(3), 582-590.

20. Nutley, S. B., Soderqvist, S., Bryde, S., Thorell, L. B., Humphreys, K., & Klingberg, T. (2011). Gains in fluid intelligence after
training non-verbal reasoning in 4-year-old children: a controlled, randomized study. Developmental Science, 14(3), 591-
601.

21. Dahlin, E., Nyberg, L., Bäckman, L., & Neely, A. S. (2008). Plasticity of executive functioning in young and older adults:
immediate training gains, transfer, and long-term maintenance. Psychology and Aging, 23, 720–730.

22. Jolles, D. D., Grol, M. J., Van Buchem, M. A., Rombouts, S. A. R. B., & Crone, E. A. (2010). Practice effects in the brain:
Changes in cerebral activation after working memory practice depend on task demands. NeuroImage, 52, 658-668.

23. Olesen, P. J., Westerberg, H., & Klingberg, T. (2004). Increased prefrontal and parietal activity after training of working
memory. Nature Neuroscience, 7(1), 75-79.

24. Diamond, A., Barnett, W. S., Thomas, J., & Munro, S. (2007). Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control. Science,
318(5855), 1387-1388.

25. Reichenberg, A., Caspi, A., Harrington, H., Houts, R., Keefe, R. S., Murray, R. M. et al. (2010). Static and dynamic cognitive
deficits in childhood preceding adult schizophrenia: a 30-year study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 160-169.

26. Blair, C. (2002). School readiness: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of children's
functioning at school entry. American Psychologist, 57(2), 111-127.

27. Eisenberg, N., Smith, C. L., & Spinrad, T. L. (2011). Effortful Control: Relations with emotion regulation, adjustment, and
socialization in childhood. In K. D. Vohs & R. F. Baumeister (Eds.), Handbook of Self-Regulation. Research, Theory and
Applications (2nd ed., pp. 263-283). New York: The Guilford Press.

28. Cole, P. M., Martin, S. E., & Dennis, T. A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Methodological challenges and
directions for child developmental research. Child Development, 75, 317-333.

29. Welch, M. C. (2001). The prefrontal cortex and the development of executive function in childhood. In A. F. Kalverboer & A.
Gramsbergen (Eds.), Handbook of brain and behavior in human development (pp. 767-790). Dordrecht, The Netherlands:
Kluwer Academic.

30. Carlson, S. M. (2003). Executive function in context: Development, measurement, theory, and experience. Monographs of
the Society for Research in Child Development, 68(3), 138-151.

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 31. Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., et al. (2007). Short-term meditation training improves attention and
self-regulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 104(43), 17152-17156.

32. Tang, Y. Y., Lu, Q., Geng, X., Stein, E. A., Yang, Y., & Posner, M. I. (2010). Short-term meditation induces white matter
changes in the anterior cingulate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 107(35), 15649-15652.

33. Bernier, A., Carlson, S. M., & Whipple, N. (2010). From External Regulation to Self-Regulation: Early Parenting Precursors of
Young Children’s Executive Functioning. Child Development, 81(1), 326-339.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 27

The Relation between Executive Functioning and
Social Cognition
Jeannette Benson, MA, Mark A. Sabbagh, PhD

Queen’s University, Canada

January 2013

Introduction

To make sense of and predict the behaviour of those around us, we use a “theory of mind” – an
understanding that peoples’ actions are caused by idiosyncratic mental states like beliefs, desires,
and intentions.1 For instance, imagine you see a friend grab a glass from the cupboard and head
towards the fridge. No matter what your own favorite drink is, you should expect your friend to
search for and retrieve the drink that she likes best. Similarly, imagine that your friend tells you
she’s hungry and then heads towards a kitchen cupboard that you yourself know is empty. You
can make sense of your friend’s actions by reasoning that she probably believes that the
cupboard has food in it, and is acting accordingly. In these examples, being able to decipher your
friend’s mental states (i.e., what she desires and believes) allows you to both explain and predict
her actions.

Understanding the development of a theory of mind has been a main topic of research over the
past 20 years. Within this framework, researchers have been particularly interested in children’s
understanding of false beliefs – instances in which someone holds a belief about the world that
differs from how the world really is. In one task that researchers often use to measure false belief
understanding, children are shown a character (e.g., Sally) hide an object in one location and
leave the scene. In Sally’s absence, the object is moved to an alternative location. Sally then
returns, and children are asked where she will look for the object. In order to pass this task,
children must recognize that Sally has a false, outdated belief about the object’s wherabouts, and
will search for it where she (falsely) believes it to be (i.e., in the location where she left the object
before leaving). Correct performance on this task typically develops between 3 and 5 years of
age, around the same time as a number of related real-world social-cognitive skills, including
pretending,2 lying,3 playing games like hide-and-seek,4 keeping secrets,4 developing peer
relationships,5 and understanding moral culpability.6

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 28

A now sizeable body of work shows that there is a connection between preschoolers’ abilities to
demonstrate theory-of-mind understanding and the development of executive-functioning skills
typically associated with the frontal cortex. Executive-functioning skills are the processes and
abilities that allow us to act in thoughtful, planned ways to achieve our goals. They include the
ability to develop goals, plan the steps necessary to achieve those goals, and inhibit urges to do
things that do not align with what we are aiming to do. Children’s understanding of false-beliefs is
most strongly predicted by response conflict executive functioning (RC-EF) – the ability to withhold
urges in favour of rule-based behaviours, as is required, for example in the game “Simon Says.”

Subject

While research clearly supports a relation between preschool children’s RC-EF and their false-
belief task performance, there is debate among researchers and theorists regarding why this
relationship exists. The goal of this review is to summarize research on the nature of the
relationship between RC-EF and false-belief understanding, and discuss implications for
understanding social-cognitive deficits.

Research Context

Relations between false-belief task performance and RC-EF skills have been identified in children
of different cultures7 and socioeconomic status,8 as well as within atypical populations.9 Moreover,
the correlation appears to exist independent of a range of relevant variables, including age,
language abilities and general intelligence.10 An early hypothesis was that the association might
exist because standard tasks used to assess false-belief understanding have non-trivial RC-EF
demands.10 For instance, correctly predicting where someone with a false belief will look for
something requires participants to do something unusual – say where something is not. This
unusual response is particularly challenging given our habitual tendency to say where something
is truly, and it is RC-EF that allows us to negotiate this challenge. Research in support of this view
has shown that experimentally manipulating the RC-EF demands of false-belief tasks has
predictable effects on children’s performance -- as the demands go up, performance on these
tasks declines.11,12,13,14,15

Though false-belief tasks likely do have non-trivial RC-EF demands like the one just described, it
now seems unlikely that these demands provide a complete account of the association between
RC-EF and false belief. Instead, recent research suggests that there is a deeper relationship

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 29

between RC-EF skills and false-belief understanding. Researchers have taken different approaches
to examining the possibility that the association is a more intrinsic one. For instance, some have
focused on the role played by common factors that may be pacing cortical maturation in the
systems that are important for both theory of mind and RC-EF (e.g., dopamine).16 Others have
suggested ways in which RC-EF and theory of mind tasks might require similar kinds of cognitive
abilities.17 Another particularly interesting possibility is that RC-EF skills enable children to learn
from the types of everyday experiences that provide them with information about other people’s
minds.

Research Results

There are several pieces of evidence that the RC-EF demands inherent to false-belief tasks cannot
fully explain the relation between RC-EF and false-belief performance:

RC-EF skills correlate not only with performance on standard false-belief tasks that involve
children responding in ways that are unusual given their typical habits, but also with
performance on tasks that do not require such responding. For instance, RC-EF is associated
with the ability to accurately explain the false-belief-driven actions of a story character after
he is shown to search unsuccessfully for an object.18 Doing so does not obviously run counter
to any established behavioural routine. These findings suggest that the relation between RC-
EF and false-belief performance goes beyond superficial RC-EF task demands.

Cross-cultural work shows that attaining a particular level of RC-EF skills does not alone
translate to successful performance on false-belief tasks.7,19 For example, Sabbagh and
colleagues showed that Chinese and U.S. preschoolers performed similarly on false-belief
measures, but the Chinese children were notably advanced in their RC-EF task performance
relative to their age-matched U.S. counterparts; Chinese 3.5-year-olds performed similarly to
U.S. 4.0-year-olds on the RC-EF tasks.7 These findings suggest that RC-EF abilities alone are
not sufficient to promote performance on measures of false-belief understanding –
otherwise, the Chinese preschoolers would have demonstrated advantages on the false-
belief measures as well.

Evidence that RC-EF skills are necessary for acquiring relevant theory-of-mind concepts comes
from the following work:

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 30

 In the cross-cultural study described above, the relative levels of RC-EF skills in the Chinese
and U.S. samples differed. Nevertheless, the relation between RC-EF and false-belief task
performance was significant within both the U.S. and Chinese groups, and the magnitudes of
the relations were similar. These findings suggest that RC-EF skills may be necessary,
although not sufficient, for false belief understanding.

Longitudinal work shows that early RC-EF skills predict later false-belief abilities, while the
reverse relation—between early false belief and later RC-EF—is not significant.20,21,22 Although
a fully-controlled analysis has yet to be conducted, this relation holds true when a number of
relevant variables are controlled, including age, verbal ability, and initial false-belief
knowledge. Studies have found this general pattern of results when testing preschool-aged
children across periods ranging from 5 months to a year.20,21,22 These findings suggest that
RC-EF skills contribute to the transitions in false-belief understanding that are taking place
over this time.

Future directions

Assuming that RC-EF skills are important for children’s developing understanding of mind, a next
step is to characterize how exactly RC-EF skills might have this facilitative effect. Many
researchers have argued that RC-EF abilities equip children with the tools necessary to learn
about other minds from their experiences (see Benson & Sabbagh23 for a review). Inherent to this
theory is that relevant experience is also critical for theory-of-mind development. Indeed, a wealth
of research shows that theory-of-mind is related to experiential factors, including parental use of
mental state terms,24 number of siblings in the home,25 parenting style,26 attachment27 and socio-
economic status.28

There are at least two mechanisms through which RC-EF might facilitate the process of learning
about other minds from experience. First, having developed RC-EF skills might make children
more likely to elicit and maintain naturalistic social interactions that provide a source of
information about other minds.21,22,29 Second, once children are engaged in an interaction, RC-EF
skills might enable them to make use of the available false-belief-relevant information. Executive
functioning may contribute to learning from experience by enabling children to 1) identify and
attend to relevant variables,29,30 2) notice discrepancies between previously-established
expectations and subsequent outcomes (i.e., expectation mismatches),31 and, more speculatively,
3) flexibly update prior knowledge based on new information. Future research is necessary to

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 31

better understand the role that RC-EF plays both in supporting social interactions and in learning
from socially-relevant feedback.

Conclusions

Research suggests that RC-EF skills are important for the development of a core aspect of social
cognition – theory of mind – during the preschool years. Though more research needs to be done,
we believe that RC-EF skills help children in the process of learning about other minds. More
specifically, RC-EF skills help children to capitalize on the types of experiences that are important
for developing their social-cognitive knowledge. Further work is necessary to clarify the more fine-
grained mechanisms through which RC-EF skills exert their effect on this developmental process.

Implications for Parents, Services and Policy

Understanding others’ mental states is critical for everyday communication and coordinated social
interaction. With this in mind, an important question concerns how to best promote the
development of these understandings among children who appear to have difficulties in
understanding other minds. It might seem natural, for instance, for a parent or a daycare provider
to encourage a child who has taken anothers’ toy to “think about how that made her feel” in an
effort to bolster the child’s sensitivity to others’ mental states. Research on the association
between RC-EF and theory of mind, however, suggests that these natural interventions may have
limited success unless children have the RC-EF skills necessary to make use of that information.
Accordingly, supporting the development of young preschoolers’ RC-EF skills might provide an
important foundation for building knowledge about others’ internal mental states. Fortunately, RC-
EF skills have been shown to improve across a number of training experiences.29 Our sense is that
as these improve, so too will children’s receptivity to information about others’ mental states.

References

1. Wellman, H. M. (1990). The Child 's Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

2. Taylor, M., & Carlson, S. M. (1997). The relation between individual differences in fantasy and theory of mind. Child
Development, 68, 436-455.

3. Talwar, V., & Lee, K. (2008). Social and cognitive correlates of children's lying behavior. Child Development, 79, 866-881.

4. Peskin, J., & Ardino, V. (2003). Representing the mental world in children's social behavior: Playing hide-and-seek and
keeping a secret. Social Development, 12, 496-512.

5. Astington, J. W., & Jenkins, J. (1995) Theory of mind development and social understanding. Cognition and Emotion, 9, 151-
165.

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 6. Killen, M., Mulvey, K. L., Richardson, C., Jampol, N., & Woodward, A. (2001). The accidental transgressor: Morally-relevant
theory of mind. Cognition, 199, 197-215.

7. Sabbagh, M. A., Xu, F., Carlson, S. M., Moses, L. J., & Lee, K. (2006). The development of executive functioning and theory of
mind: A comparison of Chinese and U.S. preschoolers. Psychological Science, 17, 74-81.

8. Hughes, C., & Ensor, R. (2007). Executive function and theory of mind: Predictive relations from ages 2 to 4. Developmental
Psychology, 43, 1447-1459.

9. Zelazo, P. D., Jacques, S., Burack, J. A., & Frye, D. (2002). The relation between theory of mind and rule use: Evidence from
persons with autism-spectrum disorders. Infant and Child Development, 11, 171-195.

10. Carlson, S. M., & Moses, L. J. (2001). Individual differences in inhibitory control and children's theory of mind. Child
Development, 72(4), 1032-1053.

11. Carlson, S. M., Moses, L. J., & Hix, H. R. (1998). The role of inhibitory processes in young children's difficulties with
deception and false belief. Child Development, 69(3), 672-691.

12. Leslie, A. M. (2005). Developmental parallels in understanding minds and bodies. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 459-462.

13. Mitchell, P., & Lacohée, H. (1991). Children's early understanding of false belief. Cognition, 39, 107-127.

14. Wellman, H. M., & Bartsch, K. (1988). Young children's reasoning and beliefs. Cognition, 30, 239-277.

15. Zaitchik, D. (1991). Is only seeing really believing? Sources of the true belief in the false belief task. Cognitive Development
, 6, 91-103.

16. Lackner, C., Bowman, L.C., & Sabbagh, M.A. (2010). Dopaminergic functioning and preschoolers’ theory of mind.
Neuropsychologia, 48, 1767-1774.

17. Frye, D., Zelazo, P. D., Palfai, T. (1995). Theory of mind and rule-based reasoning. Cognitive Development, 10, 483-527.

18. Perner, J., Lang, B., & Kloo, D. (2002). Theory of mind and self-control: More than a common problem of inhibition. Child
Development, 73, 752-767.

19. Oh, S., & Lewis, C. (2008). Korean preschoolers' advanced inhibitory control and its relation to other executive skills and
mental state understanding. Child Development, 79, 80-99.

20. Carlson, S. M., Mandell, D. J., & Williams, L. (2004). Executive function and theory of mind: Stability and prediction from
ages 2 to 3. Developmental Psychology, 40(6), 1105-1122.

21. Flynn, E. (2007). The role of inhibitory control in false belief understanding. Infant and Child Development. Special Issue:
Using the Microgenetic Method to Investigate Cognitive Development, 16, 53-69.

22. Hughes, C. (1998). Finding your marbles: Does preschoolers' strategic behavior predict later understanding of mind?
Developmental Psychology, 34, 1326-1339.

23. Benson, J. E., Sabbagh, M. A. (2009). Theory of mind and executive functioning: A developmental neuropsychological
approach. In P. Zelazo, E. Crone & M. Chandlers (Eds.). Developmental social cognitive neuroscience (pp. 63-80). New York,
NY: Psychology Press.

24. Ruffman, T., Slade, L., & Crowe, E. (2002). The relation between children’s and mother’s mental state language and theory
of mind understanding. Child Development, 73, 734-751.

25. Ruffman, T., Perner, J., Naito, M., Parkin, L., & Clements, W.A. (1998). Older (but not younger) siblings facilitate false belief
understanding. Developmental Psychology, 34, 161-174.

26. Hughes, C., Deater-Deckard, K., & Cutting, A. L. (1999). ‘Speak roughly to your little boy’? Sex differences in the relations
between parenting and preschoolers’ understanding of mind. Social Development,8, 143-160.

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 27. Meins, E., Fernyhough, C., Russell, J., Clark-Carter, D. (1998). Security of attachment as a predictor of symbolic and
mentalising abilities: A longitudinal study. Social Development, 7, 1-24.

28. Cutting, A. L., & Dunn, J. (1999). Theory of mind, emotion understanding, language, and family background: Individual
differences and interrelations. Child Development, 70, 853-865.

29. Diamond, A., Barnett, W. S., Thomas, J., & Munro, S. (2007). Preschool program improves cognitive control. Science, 318,
1387-1388.

30. Garon, N., Bryson, S. E., & Smith, I. M. (2008). Executive function in preschoolers: A review using an integrative framework.
Psychological Bulletin, 134(1), 31-60.

31. Zelazo, P.D., Carlson, S.M., & Kesek, A. (2008). The development of executive function in childhood. In C. Nelson, & M.
Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 34

Socioeconomic Status and the Development of
Executive Function
Cayce J. Hook, BA, Gwendolyn M. Lawson, BA, Martha J. Farah, PhD

University of Pennsylvania, USA

January 2013

Introduction

Emerging research points to a relationship between childhood socioeconomic status and executive
function performance. As both socioeconomic status and executive function are strongly and
independently correlated with academic and health outcomes, an understanding of their
interrelationship may have the potential to inform interventions designed to reduce disparities
and promote healthy development for all children.

Subject

Socioeconomic status, a measure of social standing that typically includes income, education and
occupation, has been linked to a wide array of life outcomes, ranging from cognitive ability and
academic achievement to physical and mental health.1-5 Understanding the pathways by which
childhood socioeconomic status influences life outcomes is a question of critical importance to
education and public health, particularly as global economic trends force more families into
poverty.6

Current knowledge of socioeconomic status and child development indicates that children from
higher-socioeconomic status families display better executive function – the ability to actively
direct, control and regulate thoughts and behaviour – than children from low-socioeconomic status
families. As executive function has been shown to predict school achievement7,8 and is also
associated with mental health outcomes,9-13 it is possible that it may partially mediate the well-
established link between socioeconomic status and academic achievement.

Problems

Research on this topic faces certain methodological challenges, resulting in part from the broad
and sometimes ambiguous nature of the terms “executive function” and “socioeconomic status.”

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 35

“Executive function” refers to the higher-order processes such as inhibitory control, working
memory, and attentional flexibility that govern goal-directed behaviour. This wide range of
abilities can be operationalized by many different valid tasks, such as computerized cognitive
tasks or parental reports of children’s behaviour.14 Likewise, “socioeconomic status” is a broad
construct that may be measured in various ways.15 Furthermore, it cannot be experimentally
manipulated, making it difficult to disentangle genetic and environmental effects, as well as the
individual contributions of the various conditions of poverty (e.g., increased family stress, reduced
cognitive stimulation, worse nutrition, crowding and poor environmental conditions).16,17 The
difficulty of establishing causality in the relationship between socioeconomic status and executive
function points to the need for large, well-designed, cautiously interpreted studies.

Research Context

Most studies of socioeconomic status and executive function have examined behavioural
performance on developmentally appropriate executive function tasks, although a few recent
studies18-20 have, instead, used electrophysiological measure prefrontal cortical function. Executive
function development has been investigated using both cross-sectional studies and large-scale
longitudinal studies, such as the NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development) Study of Early Childcare and the Family Life Project. Many mediation studies use
home-visit measures, such as the HOME inventory21 or observations of parent-child interactions
during free or structured play.22

Key Research Questions

1. What is the relationship between childhood socioeconomic status and executive function
development?

2. What environmental factors mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status and
executive function?

Recent Research Results

What is the relationship between socioeconomic status and executive function performance?

Research indicates that socioeconomic status influences neurocognitive systems unevenly. In a

recent set of studies,23-25 kindergarteners, first graders, and middle schoolers of varying
socioeconomic status took batteries of tasks assessing independent cognitive systems, including

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 36

executive function, memory, language, and visuospatial cognition. Language abilities and
executive function – particularly the domains of working memory and cognitive control – were
among the most strongly affected.

Socioeconomic status disparities in executive function have been documented across a large age
range, from infancy26 through late childhood.27 Studies have consistently found that higher
socioeconomic status is associated with better executive function performance across different
measures of socioeconomic status (such as family income-to-needs ratio or maternal education)
and across different measures of executive function (such as working memory and inhibitory
control).28-32

Executive function is supported by a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which
undergoes a long period of post-natal development,33 and thus may be particularly susceptible to
influences of childhood experience. Researchers have used event-related potentials (ERPs), which
measure brain activity via electrodes placed on the scalp, to examine socioeconomic differences
in neural processing in the prefrontal cortex. Two ERP studies18,20 compared neural measures of
selective attention across socioeconomic groups. In both cases, there were no differences on task
performance, but neural processing evidence indicated that children from low-socioeconomic
status attended more to irrelevant stimuli than did their high-socioeconomic status counterparts.

What factors mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status and executive functions?

Many environmental factors – such as stress, cognitive stimulation in the home, prenatal
environment and nutrition – have been shown to vary along socioeconomic lines.16,17 Any of these
factors could contribute to socioeconomic disparities in executive function. Recent research has
attempted to isolate environmental factors that mediate the socioeconomic status-executive
function relationship. These mediating factors may inform interventions targeting socioeconomic
status disparities in executive function and other cognitive and behavioural outcomes.

Several studies have found evidence that different aspects of the early family environment
influence the development of executive function. For example, the quality of parent-child
interactions, particularly during infancy, has been found to mediate socioeconomic status effects
on executive function at 36 months of age.22 Additionally, infants’ stress levels (measured by
salivary cortisol) partially explained the effect of positive parenting on executive function,
suggesting that parenting may affect it by shaping children’s stress responses.28 Other studies
indicate that parent support of child autonomy,34 parent scaffolding by non-intrusive help and

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 37

guidance and family chaos35,36 are important predictors of early childhood executive function.

Research Gaps

The trajectory of executive function disparities is largely unknown. Socioeconomic status

effects could grow over time, for example if they compound throughout development.
Conversely, they could remain constant, or they could diminish, for example if counteracted
by formal education.

Research to date suggests that executive function development may be particularly

susceptible to environmental influences in the years between infancy and preschool, but the
exact timing and nature of this possible sensitive period awaits further research.

It is difficult to disentangle the role that genetic and environmental factors play in the
development of executive function, and the causal nature of the relationship between
socioeconomic status and executive function has not yet been fully established. One way to
establish causality in this relationship is to study outcomes of interventions that change
factors of the childhood environment.

While executive function differences are hypothesized to at least partly account for
disparities in academic achievement, the extent to which interventions improving executive
function will lead to improvements in other life outcomes merits further investigation.

Conclusions

Evidence points to a clear association between childhood socioeconomic status and executive
function performance. This association appears to be mediated by aspects of the family
environment, particularly factors involving the quality of the parent-child relationship and its
ability to buffer stress. Research in this area is in its early stages, and studies currently underway
will further our understanding of the nature of the socioeconomic status-executive function
relationship and the environmental factors that contribute to it.

It is important to note that the existence of socioeconomic status-related differences in executive

function and brain function does not in any way imply that these differences are innate or
unchangeable. The brain is a highly plastic organ; in fact, an emerging body of research
demonstrates that the neural correlates of cognition can be changed by environmental
experience.37 We hope that elucidating socioeconomic status effects on cognitive development will

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 38

allow interventions to target more specific cognitive processes and environmental factors,
ultimately helping to reduce socioeconomic disparities.

Implications

Social policies designed to reduce socioeconomic status disparities have traditionally targeted
either socioeconomic status itself or broad achievement outcomes. Research discussed in this
article reveals additional targets: factors that mediate the relationship between socioeconomic
status and executive function (e.g., the home environment), and executive function itself.

An emerging body of research38 indicates that interventions can improve executive function in
children. Successful interventions include training software, games, yoga and meditation, sports
participation and specialized classroom curricula; lower-income children are among those who
show the largest improvements.

In what ways can policies and services address the root causes of the socioeconomic status-
executive function gap? Because the home environment has lasting effects on development,
policies that address children’s broader environments – rather than those that focus solely on
school and child care settings – may be helpful. In particular, mediation studies point to the need
for programs and interventions that reduce parental stress and increase children’s access to
cognitively stimulating activities and resources.39

References

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of the gradient. American Psychologist. 1994;49(1):15-24.

2. Gottfried AW, Gottfried AE, Bathurst K, Guerin DW, & Parramore MM. In: Bornstein, MH, Bradley RH, eds. Socioeconomic
Status, Parenting, and Child Development. Monographs in Parenting Series. Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates;
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3. Merikangas KR, He JP, Brody D, Fisher PW, Bourdon K, Koretz DS. Prevalence and treatment of mental disorders among US
children in the 2001–2004 NHANES. Pediatrics. 2010; 125(1):75-81.

4. Shanahan L, Copeland W, Costello EJ, & Angold A. Specificity of putative psychosocial risk factors for psychiatric disorders in
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5. Sirin SR. Socioeconomic status and academic achievement: a meta-analytic review of research. Review of Educational
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6. Fritzell J, Ritakallio V. Societal shifts and changed patterns of poverty. International Journal of Social Welfare. 2010;19:S25-
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7. Blair C, Diamond A. Biological processes in prevention and intervention: the promotion of self-regulation as a means of
preventing school failure. Development and Psychopathology. 2008; 20:899-911.

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 8. Evans GW, Rosenbaum J. Self-regulation and the income-achievement gap. Early Child Research Quarterly. 2008;
23(4):504-514.

9. Barch D. The cognitive neuroscience of schizophrenia. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology. 2005; 1:321-353.

10. Bush G, Valera EM, & Seidman LJ. Functional neuroimaging of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A review and
suggested future directions. Biological Psychiatry. 2005; 57:1273-128.

11. Morgan AB, Lilienfeld SO. A meta-analytic review of the relation between antisocial behavior and neuropsychological
measures of executive function. Clinical Psychology Review. 2000; 20(1):113–136.

12. Rogers RD, Kasai K, Koji M, Fukuda R, Iwanami A, Nakagome K., et al. Executive and prefrontal dysfunction in unipolar
depression: a review of neuropsychological and imaging evidence. Neuroscience Research. 2004; 50(1):1-11.

13. Williams JM, Watts, FM, Macleod C, & Mathews A. Cognitive Psychology and Emotional Disorders (2nd ed.). New York: John
Wiley and Sons; 1997.

14. Miyake A, Friedman NP, Emerson MJ, Witzki AH, Howerter A, Wager T. The unity and diversity of executive functions and
their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: a latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology. 2000; 41(1):49-100.

15. Hauser RM. Measuring socioeconomic status in studies of child development. Child Development. 1994; 65:1541-1545.

16. Bradley RH, Corwyn RF. Socioeconomic status and child development. Annual Review of Psychology. 2002; 53(1):371-399.

17. Evans GW. The environment of childhood poverty. American Psychologist. 2004; 59(2):77-92.

18. D’AngiulliA, Weinberg J, Grunau R, Hertzman C, and Grebenkov P. Towards a cognitive science of social inequality:
Children’s attention-related ERPs and salivary cortisol vary with their socioeconomic status. Proceedings of the
30th Cognitive Science Society Annual Meeting. 211-216

19. Kishiyama, MM, Boyce WT, Jimenez AM, Perry LM, Knight RT. Socioeconomic disparities affect prefrontal function in children.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2008; 21(6):1106-1115.

20. Stevens C, Lauinger B, Neville H. Differences in the neural mechanisms of selective attention in children from different
socioeconomic backgrounds: an event‐related brain potential study. Developmental Science. 2009; 12(4):634-646.

21. Bradley RH, Corwyn RF, McAdoo HP, Coll CG. The home environments of children in the United States. Part 1: variations by
age, ethnicity, and poverty status. Child Development. 2001; 72(6):1868-1886.

22. Rhoades BL, Greenberg MT, Lanza ST, Blair C. Demographic and familial predictors of early executive function
development: contribution of a person-centered perspective. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2011; 108(3): 638-
662.

23. Farah MJ, Shera DM, Savage JH, et al. Childhood poverty: Specific associations with neurocognitive development. Brain
Research. 2006; 1110(1): 166-174.

24. Noble KG, Norman MF, Farah MJ. Neurocognitive correlates of socioeconomic status in kindergarten children.
Developmental Science. 2005; 8(1): 74-87.

25. Noble KG, McCandliss BD, Farah MJ. Socioeconomic gradients predict individual differences in neurocognitive abilities.
Developmental Science. 2007; 10(4): 464-480.

26. Lipina SJ, Martelli MI, Vuelta B, Colombo JA. Performance on the A-not-B task of Argentinian infants from unsatisfied and
satisfied basic needs homes. International Journal of Psychology. 2005; 39: 49-60.

27. Sarsour K, Sheridan M, Jutte D, Nuru-Jeter A, Hinsh S, Boyce WT. Family socioeconomic status and child executive functions:
The roles of language, home environment, and single parenthood. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.
2011; 17(1): 120-132.

28. Blair C, Granger DA, Willoughby M et al. Salivary cortisol mediates effects of poverty and parenting on executive functions
in early childhood. Child Development. 2011; 82(6): 1970-1984.

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 29. Hughes C, Ensor R. Executive function and theory of mind in 2 year olds: a family affair? Developmental Neuropsychology.
2005; 28(2): 645-668.

30. Lipina SJ, Martelli MI, Vuelta BL, Injoque-Ricle I, Colombo JA. Poverty and executive performance in preschool pupils from
Buenos Aires city (Republica Argentina). Interdisciplinaria. 2004; 21(2): 153-193.

31. Mezzacappa E. Alerting, orienting, and executive attention: Developmental properties and sociodemographic correlates in
an epidemiological sample of young, urban children. Child Development. 2004; 75(5): 1373-1386.

32. Wiebe SA, Sheffield T, Nelson JM, Clark CAC, Chevalier N, & Espy KA. The structure of executive function in 3-year-olds.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2011; 108(3): 436-452.

33. Casey BJ, Giedd JN, Thomas KM. Structural and functional brain development and its relation to cognitive development.
Biological Psychology. 2000; 54(1-3): 241-257.

34. Bernier A, Carlson SM, Whipple N. From external regulation to self-regulation: Early parenting precursors of young
children’s executive functioning. Child Development. 2010; 81(1): 326-339.

35. Bibok MB, Carpendale JIM, Muller U. Parent scaffolding and the development of executive function. New Directions in Child
and Adolescent Development. 2009; 123: 17-34.

36. Hughes C, Ensor R. How do families help or hinder the emergence of early executive function? New Directions in Child and
Adolescent Development. 2009; 123: 35-50.

37. Rosenzweig, MR. Effects of differential experience on the brain and behavior. Developmental Neuropsychology. 2003;24(2-
3):523-540.

38. Diamond A, Lee K. Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science.
2011;333(6045):959 -964.

39. Hackman DA, Farah MJ, Meaney MJ. Socioeconomic status and the brain: mechanistic insights from human and animal
research. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2010; 11: 651-659.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 41

Executive Functions in the Classroom
Clancy Blair, PhD

NYU Steinhard, USA

January 2013

Introduction

Executive functions refer to cognitive abilities involved in the control and coordination of
information in the service of goal-directed actions.1,2 As such, executive functions can be defined
as a supervisory system that is important for planning, reasoning ability and the integration of
thought and action.3 At a more fine-grained level, however, executive functions, as studied in the
cognitive development literature, has come to refer to specific interrelated information processing
abilities that enable the resolution of conflicting information; namely, working memory, defined as
the holding in mind and updating of information while performing some operation on it; inhibitory
control, defined as the inhibition of prepotent or automatized responding when engaged in task
completion; and mental flexibility, defined as the ability to shift attentional or cognitive set among
distinct but related dimensions or aspects of a given task.4,5,6,7

Subject

Executive functions are of growing interest in the field of child development research as an
indicator of child health and well-being generally and of self-regulation specifically. The extent to
which young children can appropriately resolve conflicting information and inhibit automatic
responding when needed is seen as an indicator of the capacity for reflection and the ability to
guide behaviour using future-oriented thinking. Such abilities should, in turn, lead to well
regulated behaviour and to increased adaptation to a variety of contexts. Over the past two
decades, a number of studies have demonstrated the feasibility of measuring executive function
in young children.8,9,10 As well, during this time period a number of studies have demonstrated that
executive functioning is meaningfully related to a number of aspects of child development
including social-emotional competence11,12 and early academic ability.13,14,15 Studies of the
development of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct problems, as well as
research on learning disabilities,16 indicate that executive function deficits may be a central aspect
of these disorders.17

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 42

Problems

Several issues are relevant to research on executive functions in children. Primarily these issues
relate to construct definition and validity and to the need for measures suitable for longitudinal
use. Importantly, prior research with diverse test batteries with adult samples has indicated the
presence of three distinct but interrelated factors for executive functions, namely, working
memory, inhibitory control and attentional flexibility.18 Similar measurement work with young
children, however, it has yielded evidence of only a single underlying factor associated with
executive function ability.19,20 These findings have given rise to questions about a possible
differentiation of executive functions from a single factor into distinct factors in adolescence or
young adulthood. They have also led to questions about inherent limits on the measurement of
executive function abilities in young children and the idea that assessments may become more
precise with age. Additionally, these questions have highlighted the need for measures of
executive function that can be used longitudinally with children. Most measures of executive
function appropriate for use with young children tend to discriminate ability within a relatively
narrow age range with ceiling and floor effects at older and younger ages.21 Recently, however, a
number of measures have been developed that are appropriate for longitudinal use.22,23

Key Research Questions

Given evidence indicating that executive function is important for school readiness and a central
aspect of self-regulation in children, key questions relate to the identification of the relevant
influences on the development of executive function and on its malleability. Of specific interest
are questions relating to the ways in which poverty affects executive function development and
the idea that effects of poverty on it might account in part for socioeconomic status (SES) related
gaps in school readiness and early school achievement.

Recent Research Results

Recent research results provide valuable insight into the development of executive functions in
early childhood. Several measures appropriate for longitudinal use with children as young as 30
months of age have been developed and are being validated. These include a version of the
Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task appropriate for longitudinal use,24 as well as a measure
known as the Shape School.25 Similarly, an innovative task battery has been developed that
contains distinct tasks designed to measure working memory, inhibitory control and attentional

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 43

flexibility.

Increased precision in the definition and measurement of executive functions in children has gone
hand in hand with longitudinal studies examining its development and its relation to multiple
aspects of child development. Several studies, using a variety of measures, have demonstrated
moderate to large associations between executive function ability and school achievement in the
early elementary grades.13,14,15,26,27 Importantly, these associations were observed when controlling
for general intelligence or for early indicators of achievement, or both; in fact, executive function
measures substantially attenuated or fully accounted for variance in outcomes associated with
measures of general intelligence and early academic ability.

Results from a number of studies, including a population-based longitudinal sample of children

followed from birth in predominantly low-income homes indicate that the quality of parenting
mediates effects of the social and demographic risk on the development of executive functions at
age 3.28,29,30 As well, findings from the longitudinal study demonstrate that stress physiology, as
indicated by levels of the glucocorticoid hormone cortisol in children, is related to executive
functions and mediates in part effects of parenting and early risk on executive functions.29

Demonstration of relations between early experience and executive functions and between
executive functions and social-emotional and academic outcomes have given rise to intervention
studies examining executive functions as a potential target of efforts to promote social-emotional
and academic competence in children at high risk for school failure. Results from these studies are
generally positive, either suggesting or indicating that program-related changes in executive
functions mediate, to some extent, program effects on academic and behavioural outcomes.30,31,32

Research Gaps

Current gaps in the literature include the need for greater precision in the longitudinal
measurement of executive functions in early childhood, the identification of early precursors of
executive function development that can be measured in the infant and toddler period, and
evidence on the malleability or trainability of executive function development. Increased precision
in the longitudinal measurement of executive functions will allow for a better understanding of the
typical developmental course of executive function ability and on determinants of change in
executive functions. Identification of early precursors can help to provide information on early
indicators which can be used to identify risk for executive function and self-regulation difficulties

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 44

in early childhood. Innovative parenting or early child care programs might reasonably be
expected to increase executive functioning in early childhood. A central gap in research on
executive function development concerns the extent to which it is modifiable by experience.

Conclusions

Research on executive functions in early childhood has increased exponentially over the last
decade. In general, the research literature on the construct indicates that executive functions can
be reliably and validly measured in early childhood and that measures of executive function ability
are meaningfully related to multiple aspects of child development including social-emotional and
academic outcomes. As such, extant research has tended to confirm that executive function
development is a central indicator of school readiness abilities. As well, research suggests that
early executive function deficits may be sensitive indicators of risk for learning disability and
perhaps of risk for early developing psychopathology. More research is needed, however, on the
developmental course of executive function abilities, not only in early childhood but throughout
middle childhood and adolescence. As well, research is needed to address relevant aspects of
children’s home and school environments that may promote or impede executive function
development. Increased understanding of experiential influences on executive function
development can be paired with a growing research base on the underlying neurobiology of
executive cognition.

Implications for Parents, Services and Policy

Evidence indicates the relevance of executive function abilities to a number of aspects of healthy
child development. This evidence highlights an ongoing need for the identification of specific
aspects of experience and specific pedagogical approaches that exercise executive function
abilities. Evidence linking executive function abilities to school readiness and early school
achievement suggest the possibility of developing new curricular approaches or modifying
existing approaches in early childhood programs and in the early elementary grades to more
explicitly focus on executive function abilities. Current evidence suggests that early childhood
programs that focus on self-regulation may be effective in promoting executive function abilities
in children.32,33 Indeed, it may be that diverse types of activities ranging from yoga to mindfulness
training to martial arts to aerobic exercise have broad benefits on core attention shifting, impulse
control and working memory abilities that comprise executive functions.

References

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 45

 1. Fuster, J. M. (1997). The prefrontal cortex. Anatomy, physiology and neuropsychology of the frontal lobe. NY: Lippincott-
Raven Press.

2. Miller, E. K., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24,
167-202.

3. Shallice, T., & Burgess, P. (1996). The domain of supervisory processes and temporal organization of behaviour.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 351(1346), 1405-1411.

4. Davidson, M. C., Amso, D., Anderson, L. C., & Diamond, A. (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive functions
from 4-13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia, 44, 2037-2078.

5. Diamond, A. (2002). Normal development of prefrontal cortex from birth to young adulthood: Cognitive functions, anatomy,
and biochemistry. In D. Stuss & R. Knight (Eds.), Principles of frontal lobe function (pp. 466 – 503). New York: Oxford.

6. Garon, N., Bryson, S.E., & Smith, I.M. (2008). Executive function in preschoolers: a review using an integrative framework.
Psychological Bulletin, 134, 31–60.

7. Zelazo, P. D., & Müeller, U. (2002). Executive function in typical and atypical development. In U. Goswami (Ed.), Blackwell
Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development (pp. 445–469). Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.

8. Diamond, A., & Taylor, C. (1996). Development of an aspect of executive control: Development of the abilities to remember
what I said and to ‘‘do as I say, not as I do.’’ Developmental Psychobiology, 29, 315 – 334.

9. Espy, K. A. (1997). The shape school: Assessing executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology,
13(4), 495-499.

10. Zelazo, P.D. & Reznick, J.S. (1991). Age related asynchrony of knowledge and action. Child Development, 62, 719-735.

11. Carlson, S.M., Mandell, D.J., & Williams, L. (2004). Executive function and theory of mind: stability and prediction from age 2
to 3. Developmental Psychology, 40, 1105–1122.

12. Hughes, C. & Ensor, R. (2007). Executive function and theory of mind: Predictive relations from ages 2- to 4-years.
Developmental Psychology, 43, 1447-1459.

13. Blair, C. & Razza, R. P (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging
math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Development, 78, 647-663.

14. Bull, R., & Scerif, G. (2001). Executive functioning as a predictor of children's mathematics ability: Inhibition, switching, and
working memory. Developmental Neuropsychology, 19(3), 273-293.

15. Espy, K. A., McDiarmid, M. M., Cwik, M. F., Stalets, M. M., Hamby, A., & Senn, T. E. (2004). The contribution of executive
functions to emergent mathematic skills in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26(1), 465-486.

16. Geary, D. C., Hoard, M., Byrd-Craven, J., Nugent, L. & Numtee, C (2007). Cognitive mechanisms underlying achievement
deficits in children with mathematical learning disability. Child Development, 78, 1343-1359.

17. Arnsten, A. F., & Li, B. M. (2005). Neurobiology of executive functions: Catecholamine influences on prefrontal cortical
functions. Biological Psychiatry, 57(11), 1377-1384.

18. Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of
executive functions and their contributions to complex "frontal lobe" tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology,
41(1), 49-100.

19. Wiebe, S. A., Espy, K. A., &Charak, D. (2008). Using confirmatory factor analysis to understand executive control in
preschool children: I. Latent structure. Developmental Psychology, 44, 575-587.

20. Willoughby, M. T., Blair, C. B., Wirth, R. J., Greenberg, M., & the Family Life Project Investigators (2010). The measurement
of executive function at age 3 years: Psychometric properties and criterion validity of a new battery of tasks. Psychological
Assessment, 22, 306–317.

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 21. Carlson, S. A. (2005). Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental
Neuropsychology, 28(2), 595-616.

22. Davidson, M. C., Amso, D., Anderson, L. C., & Diamond, A. (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive functions
from 4-13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia, 44, 2037-2078.

23. Willoughby, M. T., Wirth, R. J., & Blair, C. B. (2011). Contributions of modern measurement theory to measuring executive
function in early childhood: An empirical demonstration. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108, 414-435.

24. Zelazo, P. D. (2006). The dimensional change card sort (DCCS): A method of assessing executive function in children.
Nature Protocols, 1(1), 297-301.

25. Espy, K.A., Bull, R.B., Martin, J. & Stroup, W. (2006). Measuring the development of executive control with the Shape School.
Psychological Assessment, 18, 373-381.

26. McClelland, M. M., Cameron, C. E.., Connor, C. M., Farris, C. L., Jewkes, A., M., & Morrison, F. J. (2007). Links between
behavioral regulation and preschoolers’ literacy, vocaculary and math skills. Developmental Psychology, 43, 947-959.

27. Welsh, J. A., Nix, R. L., Blair, C., Bierman, K. L., & Nelson, K. E. (2010). The development of cognitive skills and gains in
academic school readiness for children from low-income families. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(1), 43-53.

28. Bernier, A., Carlson, S.M., & Whipple, N. (2010). From external regulation to self-regulation: early parenting precursors of
young children’s executive functioning. Child Development, 81, 326–339.

29. Blair, C., Granger, D. Willoughby, M., Mills-Koonce, R., Cox, M., Greenberg, M.T., Kivlighan, K., Fortunato, C. & the FLP
Investigators (2011). Salivary cortisol mediates effects of poverty and parenting on executive functions in early childhood.
Child Development, 82, 1970-1984.

30. Hammond, S. I., Müller, U., Carpendale, J. I. M., Bibok, M. B., & Liebermann-Finestone, D. P. (2011). The effects of parental
scaffolding on preschoolers' executive function. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. doi:
10.1037/a002551.

31. Bierman, K.B., Nix, R.L., Greenberg, M.T., Domitrovich, C., & Blair, C. (2008). Executive functions and school readiness
intervention: Impact, moderation, and mediation in the Head Start – REDI program. Development and Psychopathology, 20,
821-843.

32. Diamond, A., Barnett, W. S., Thomas, J., & Munro, S. (2007). Preschool program improves cognitive control. Science
318(5855), 1387-1388.

33. Raver, C. C., Jones, S. M., Li-Grining, C. P., Zhai, F., Bub, K., & Pressler, E. (2011). CSRP’s impact on low-income
preschoolers’ pre-academic skills: Self-regulation as a mediating mechanism. Child Development.82, 362-378.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 47

Reflections on the Development of Executive
Function: Commentary on Knapp and Morton,
Munakata et al., Rueda and Paz-Alonso, Benson
and Sabbagh, Hook et al., and Blair
Philip David Zelazo, PhD

Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, USA

January 2013

Introduction

Children’s executive function (EF) is now recognized to be a key aspect of human development.
Interest in the development of EF has increased dramatically during the past decade, in part
because individual differences in EF measured in childhood have been found to predict a wide
range of developmental outcomes, including school readiness, social functioning, academic
achievement, and even mental and physical health.1 Indeed, impairments in EF are prominent
features of numerous disorders with childhood onset, including ADHD, autism and conduct
disorder. At the same time, however, research on EF has yielded evidence of considerable
plasticity or malleability, and EF is emerging as a primary target of interventions designed to
promote healthy development. The articles included in this section2-7 provide a brief survey of
major themes in current research on EF, identify questions for future research, and reveal clearly
why the study of EF and its development is of enormous importance both for a basic scientific
understanding of human behaviour and for more direct efforts to improve the lives of children.

Research and Conclusions

The following five questions are central among the many issues raised in this set of articles.

1. How do we measure EF in childhood and across the lifespan?

Blair2 highlights the need for “measures suitable for longitudinal research,” and Knapp and Morton
3
note that “tasks that are appropriate for testing EF at one age will not typically be suitable for
testing EF in older children.” Munakata et al.6 also make this point. Having measures that can be
used across a wide age range is important if we want to compare EF across ability levels, whether
age-related or not. Such measures also inform and are informed by our understanding of the

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 48

structure of EF.

A major methodological advance in this area is the introduction of the new Cognition Battery from
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral
Function,8,9 which includes measures of all three key aspects of EF: cognitive flexibility, inhibitory
control and working memory. These measures include, respectively, a version of the Dimensional
Change Card Sort,10 a version of the Eriksen flanker task derived from the Attention Network Task,
11
and a List Sorting task derived from the Spanish and English Neuropsychological Assessment
Scales.12 The NIH Toolbox measures of EF are brief (less than five minutes each) and are suitable
for use in repeated trials (with minimal practice effects for participants across the lifespan. Results
from a validation study of the NIH Toolbox (N = 476) not only confirmed that the measures are
reliable and valid but also yielded unique information about the structure of EF at different ages
(from 3 to 85 years).13 In general, there was good evidence of the increasing differentiation of EF
from other aspects of cognitive function, which also showed increasing specialization, consistent
with a characterization of neurocognitive development as interactive functional specialization.14

One thing the NIH Toolbox currently lacks, however, is a measure of hot EF. As Rueda and Paz-
Alonso4 note, there is an important distinction to be made between the more cool cognitive forms
of EF that are prominent in cool contexts and the more hot, emotional forms of EF that play a key
role in motivationally significant situations.15 The former rely more heavily on networks involving
lateral regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC; e.g., rostrolateral PFC) whereas the latter rely more
heavily on networks involving ventral and medial regions of prefrontal cortex (e.g., orbitofrontal
cortex, which is involved in the flexible re-appraisal of the affective or motivational significance of
stimuli).

2. What have we learned about EF from studying the brain?

The use of the same measure of EF across the lifespan suggests that it develops most rapidly
during the preschool years, but accelerates during the transition to adolescence.9 Both periods
appear to be marked by relatively rapid changes not only in behaviour but also in the structure
and function of the EF-related PFC networks discussed by Knapp and Morton.3 Although more
research is required, these periods may be so-called sensitive periods of heightened sensitivity to
environmental influences, including both expectable (normative) influences and those that are
more unique to individuals.16

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In general, neurocognitive development can be seen as a dynamic process of adaptation wherein
neural systems are constructed (by the child) in a use-dependent fashion. Fibres connecting
regions within a network (and between networks) are myelinated in a use-dependent fashion, and
unused synapses are pruned. Naturally, these processes are accompanied by corresponding
changes in neurocognitive function. For example, in addition to improving EF performance,
training EF in early childhood produces changes in brain electrical activity measured on the scalp
(i.e., the amplitude of the N2 component), which reflects activation of the anterior cingulate cortex
and is reliably elicited by detection of conflict.17,18

This example also illustrates another important characteristic of EF: there is a dynamic interaction
between top-down EF processes and bottom-up influences on EF in particular and on behaviour in
general. Relatively rapid, automatic and bottom-up neurocognitive responses (e.g., the N2-
indexed ACC response to conflict) appear to influence relatively slow, voluntary and top-down EF
processes (e.g., by triggering the PFC activation underlying reflection19), and this EF, in turn,
appears reciprocally to influence the more bottom-up influences (e.g., reduction in N2 amplitude).
Blair’s longitudinal research on EF and stress/stress reactivity20 addresses another aspect of this
dynamic interaction.

3. What are the naturally occurring influences on EF and its development, and how do they work?

While it is clear that there are genetic correlates of EF, and also that are many environmental
correlates of EF,some of which are most likely causal influences, it is, as Hook, Lawson and Farah5
point out, “difficult to disentangle the role that genetic and environmental factors play in the
development of executive function.” Indeed, it may be impossible because these influences
interact dynamically (over time) to yield EF phenotypes. To study this interaction, one needs to
look at the bidirectional causal pathways linking genes, behaviour and aspects of the
environment. For example, it will be of considerable interest to examine epigenetic changes
accompanying naturally-occurring and experimentally-induced changes in EF.

4. What are the socio-demographic correlates of EF?

Both Blair2 and Hook et al.5 describe some of the many socio-demographic correlates of EF, which
include socioeconomic status – and all the sources of variation that are captured simultaneously
by this construct – but also, more precisely, specific aspects of parenting, social functioning and
school achievement.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 50

It is interesting to note that those aspects of cognitive function that are most strongly related to
socioeconomic status, language and executive function, are precisely those that might be
expected to be most dependent on enculturation.

Hook et al.5 point out that research to date suggests that children from low socioeconomic status
(SES) may be most likely to benefit from EF interventions. To the extent that the EF interventions
provide specific opportunities that low-SES children are more likely to lack in their everyday lives
(e.g., playing games that require inhibitory control, such as Simon Says), these children will be
getting something that they may in fact need for the healthy or optimal development of EF to
occur. Children in middle-class environments may be more likely to encounter these EF-skill-
building (and playful, fun, motivating, etc.) exercises in their daily interactions with their parents,
teachers, older siblings and others. Of course, they may also be more likely to encounter a safe
and consistent environment, to be engaged in self-reflective, psychologically-distanc-ing
discussions, to receive sensitive scaffolding from parents and others, and many other things that
are likely to influence EF development.

It is also possible, however, that children who already have a strong foundation in EF, and are
appropriately developmentally reflective and self aware, will be the children who can make the
most out of any (necessarily limited) intervention. In any event, it will be important, as Blair2
notes, to know something about the limits of EF plasticity. It would also help to know to what
extent plasticity itself changes with age (e.g., in the form of sensitive periods), what variables
influence plasticity, whether these influences change with age, and many other important
questions. We currently know little more than that there is plasticity and that there appear to be
periods of relatively rapid growth during which environmental influences play an important active
role.

5. What do we know about the characteristics of interventions that improve EF?

The range of effective interventions that improve EF was comprehensively reviewed by Diamond
and Lee.21 Based in part on that review, I would suggest that effective interventions appear to
have the following characteristics:

a. They tend to require goal-directed problem solving in motivationally significant contexts.

The exact role of motivation in these interventions is still unclear, but learning, and likely,
degree of plasticity, is generally enhanced when children are interested in something (a
goal, for example), and it’s possible that there is an optimal range within which levels of

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 51

 interest, and motivation more generally, are most beneficial.

b. They typically require sustained self-reflective focused attention (i.e., sustained reflective
reprocessing of information) on some challenge. To meet these challenges, children are
called upon to slow down, reflect on the current context including relevant rules and plans,
and select the appropriate rule or plan to implement.

c. They tend to involve adaptive challenges. Of course, challenges need to be adaptive in order
for them to remain challenging, and for there to be something to be learned. In addition,
however, degree of challenge surely interacts with motivation, and one consequence of
continually challenging children is to help ensure that their motivation remains at an
appropriate level.

d. They tend to involve a lot of repetition and practice. The importance of practice for skill
acquisition in general is widely known, and it is now possible to observe the Hebbian
processes whereby repeated practice of particular behaviours strengthens the neural
pathways that underlie those behaviours.22

Conclusion

During the past decade, there has been considerable progress towards a more complete
understanding of EF and its development during childhood. The articles2-7 in this section provide an
excellent introduction both to what has been learned so far, and to what remains to be revealed.

References

1. Carlson, S. M., & Zelazo, P. D., & Faja, S. (in press). Executive function. In P. D. Zelazo (Ed.), Oxford handbook of
developmental psychology (Vol. 1: Body and mind). New York: Oxford University Press.

2. Blair C. Executive functions in the classroom. Morton JB, topic ed. In: Tremblay RE, Boivin M, Peters RDeV, eds.
Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood
Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development; 2013:1-7. Available at: http://www.child-
encyclopedia.com/documents/BlairANGxp1-Cognitive_stimulation.pdf. Accessed January 14, 2013.

3. Knapp K, Morton B. Brain development and executive functioning. Morton JB, topic ed. In: Tremblay RE, Boivin M, Peters
RDeV, eds. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for Early
Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development; 2013:1-7. Available at:
http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/Knapp-MortonANGxp1.pdf. Accessed January 14, 2013.

4. Rueda MR, Paz-Alonso PM. Executive function and emotional development. Morton JB, topic ed. In: Tremblay RE, Boivin M,
Peters RDeV, eds. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for Early
Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development; 2013:1-7. Available at:
http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/Rueda-Paz-AlonsoANGxp1.pdf. Accessed January 14, 2013.

5. Hook CJ, Lawson GM, Farah MJ. Socioeconomic status and the development of executive function. Morton JB, topic ed. In:
Tremblay RE, Boivin M, Peters RDeV, eds. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre
of Excellence for Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development; 2013:1-8.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 52

 Available at: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/Hook-Lawson-FarahANGxp1.pdf. Accessed January 14, 2013.

6. Munakata Y, Michaelson L, Barker J, Chevalier N. Executive functioning during infancy and childhood. Morton JB, topic ed. In:
Tremblay RE, Boivin M, Peters RDeV, eds. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre
of Excellence for Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development; 2013:1-6.
Available at: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/Munakata-Michaelson-Barker-ChevalierANGxp1.pdf. Accessed
January 14, 2013.

7. Benson J, Sabbagh MA. The relation between executive functioning and social cognition. Morton JB, topic ed. In: Tremblay
RE, Boivin M, Peters RDeV, eds. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of
Excellence for Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development; 2013:1-7.
Available at: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/Benson-SabbaghANGxp1.pdf. Accessed Accessed January 14,
2013.

8. Zelazo, P. D., Anderson, J. E., Richler, J., Wallner-Allen, K., Beaumont, J. L., & Weintraub, S. (in press). NIH Toolbox Cognition
Battery (NIHTB-CB): measuring executive function and attention. In P. D. Zelazo & P. J. Bauer (Eds.), National Institutes of
Health Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB): Validation for children between 3 and 15 years. Monographs of the Society
for Research in Child Development.

9. Zelazo, P. D., & Bauer, P. J. (Eds.) (in press). National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB): Validation
for children between 3 and 15 years. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

10. Zelazo, P. D. (2006). The Dimensional Change Card Sort: A method of assessing executive function in children. Nature
Protocols, 1, 297-301.

11. Rueda, M. R., Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Halparin, J. D., Gruber, D. B., Lercari, L. P., & Posner, M. I. (2004). Development of
attentional networks in childhood. Neuropsychologia, 42, 1029-1040.

12. Mungas, D., Reed, B. R., Tomaszewski Farias, S., & DeCarli, C. (2005). Criterion-referenced validity of a neuropsychological
test battery: equivalent performance in elderly Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. Journal of the International
Neuropsychological Society, 11, 620-630.

13. Mungas, D., Widaman, K., Zelazo, P. D., Tulsky, D., Heaton, R., Slotkin, J. et al. (in press). NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery
(CB): Factor Structure for 3- to 15-year-olds. In P. D. Zelazo & P. J. Bauer (Eds.), National Institutes of Health
Toolbox—Cognition Battery (NIH Toolbox CB): Validation for children between 3 and 15 years. Monographs of the Society
for Research in Child Development.

14. Johnson, M. H. (2011).Interactive specialization: A domain-general framework for human functional brain development?
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 1, 7–21.

15. Zelazo, P. D., & Müller, U. (2002). Executive functions in typical and atypical development. In U. Goswami (Ed.), Handbook
of childhood cognitive development (pp. 445-469). Oxford: Blackwell.

16. Greenough, W. T., Black, J. E., & Wallace, C. S. (1987). Experience and brain development. Child Development, 58, 539-559.

17. Espinet, S. D., Anderson, J. E., & Zelazo, P. D. (in press). Reflection training improves executive function in preschool-age
children: Behavioral and neural effects. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

18. Rueda, M. R., Rothbart, M. K., & Saccamanno, L., & Posner, M. I. (2005) Training, maturation and genetic influences on
the development of executive attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 14931-14936.

19. Botvinick, M. M., Braver, T. S., Barch, D. M., Carter, C. S., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). Conflict monitoring and cognitive control.
Psychological Review, 108, 624-652.

20. Blair, C., & Ursache, A. (2011). A bidirectional theory of executive functions and self-regulation. In R. Baumeister & K. Vohs
(Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (2nd ed., pp. 300–320). New York: Guilford.

21. Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old.
Science, 333, 959-964.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 53

 22. Stiles, J. (2008). The fundamentals of brain development: Integrating nature and nurture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 54

Protective Role of Executive Function Skills in
High-Risk Environments
Amanda J. Wenzel, BA, Megan R. Gunnar, PhD

University of Minnesota, USA

April 2013

Introduction

Recently, the field of resilience has begun to focus on the protective role of executive functions in
the school success of children facing adversity. Executive function, also termed cognitive control,
describes goal-directed abilities to control thought, behaviour and emotions.1 These skills can be
seen in the ability to retain information in working memory, sustain or shift attention, inhibit
automatic responses to perform an instructed or goal-directed action, and delay gratification.

EF skills develop rapidly in the preschool period2 and are thought to provide a foundation for
cognitive and behavioural school readiness.3 In the classroom, executive function skills may
manifest as the ability to pay attention, follow instructions, wait one’s turn, and remember rules.
These skills have shown particular importance for children exposed to early life stress, with recent
research suggesting that executive function skills predict resilient school and peer functioning
above and beyond intelligence level.4,5,6,7

Although these skills are protective for high-risk children, the development of executive function
skills is vulnerable to exposure to trauma and chronic stress.8 Children from various adverse
backgrounds (e.g., homeless/highly mobile, poverty, early institutionalism, maltreatment, etc.)
tend to have deficits in executive function.6,7,9,10,11 Taken together, these findings suggest a need to
lower chronic stress exposure and target building executive function skills through intervention
and prevention efforts with children.

Subject

High-risk youth with more developed executive function skills show better cognitive and
behavioural school readiness and performance.3,12 These skills appear to enable children to
navigate their constantly changing environment,9,13 which may be especially key for children
developing in chaotic environments.

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 55

However, recent research has shown that children exposed to high levels of adversity may be less
prepared to succeed in school, in part due to deficits in executive function skills.6,7,9,10,11 These
deficits may undermine children’s abilities to succeed in academics and develop positive peer and
teacher relationships.12,14,15 This may have long-term implications for school success given that the
achievement gap tends to persist and even widen throughout the school years.16,17

Given evidence that executive function skills are malleable to intervention and children who
demonstrate poorer initial performance make greater gains,18 recent efforts to improve high-risk
children’s transition to school have targeted building executive function skills prior to
kindergarten.4,19 Furthermore, research suggests that executive function skills are responsive to
intervention across the school years.18

Problems

Studying the protective role of executive function presents several challenges. First, there are few
measures capable of fully capturing executive function abilities for children who are experiencing
delays in the development of these skills. Since exposure to chronic early life stress has been
linked with impaired executive function skills in some children,8 it is critical to be able to measure
a wide range in functioning to fully capture the variability in these skills.

Current interventions to improve executive function skills employ a variety of methods including
training, classroom curriculum, or physical activity.18 Though these programs suggest executive
function skills are malleable, they also show varied success in skill improvements.20,21,22,23,24
Programs that utilize computer-based training show promise in enhancing executive function
skills; however, improvements are specific to the domain trained (e.g., working memory) and do
not seem to expand to other areas of executive function more generally.18

Other programs designed to boost executive function skills integrate executive function activities
into the daily lives of children, such as the preschool curriculum Tools of the Mind.25 Throughout
this curriculum, children are encouraged to utilize private speech or visual reminders (e.g., a
picture of an ear to remind them that they need to listen or pay attention) to develop inhibitory
control skills. Initial findings suggested children in these classrooms develop better executive
function skills.26 However, recent studies have failed to replicate these findings,27 suggesting
possible challenges with the curriculum or fidelity of implementation.

Key Research Questions

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Developmental studies designed to understand the protective role of executive function often
address the following questions:

1. What is the mechanism through which executive function prepares children for school
success?

2. What helps foster executive function skills in young children experiencing delays?

3. What helps protect these skills from chronic stress?

Recent Research Results

Research consistently indicates that children with more developed executive function skills prior
to kindergarten experience greater school success.6,7 For academic achievement, these skills may
scaffold language and mathematic success.12 In fact, in a low-income sample of children,
researchers have found that executive function skills prior to kindergarten predict growth in both
numeracy and literacy skills across the kindergarten year.12 A successful transition to school may
be particularly critical for children who have faced high levels of adversity and may be at risk for
poorer school performance.

In addition to providing a cognitive foundation for learning, executive function skills may also
support academic success by promoting appropriate classroom behaviour.3 Many kindergarten
teachers report that it is more important for children to control themselves in the classroom,
follow directions, and not be disruptive than it is to know the alphabet or how to count to 20.3 This
suggests that teachers may find children with better executive function skills to be more
teachable than children who are more distracted and prone to disruption.3

Furthermore, executive function skills may promote the development of positive teacher and peer
relationships.28 Studies suggest that there is overlap between the development of executive
function and Theory of Mind (ToM), which is the ability to identify that others’ desires and
knowledge differ from one’s own. These skills are associated with lower levels of aggression,
better problem solving skills, and positive social skills.29,30 Additionally, the ability to delay
gratification may be linked with children’s ability to regulate frustration and stress.31,32

Research Gaps

Currently, there is limited research on the effectiveness of interventions to boost executive

function skills with very high-risk children. When developing interventions for these children, it

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may be critical to consider that children from a variety of adverse backgrounds may consistently
demonstrate impairments in executive function.6,7,9,10,11 Nevertheless, it will be important to
remember that intervention needs and responses of children with different experiences may
differ. For children currently experiencing chronic stress (e.g., homeless/highly mobile), it is
unclear whether it is feasible to target executive function skills without first reducing stress and
building coping skills. Future research will be needed to learn how best to tailor interventions to
account for the needs of different children.

Conclusions

Studies consistently suggest that exposure to trauma or chronic early life stress may impair the
development of executive function skills.6,7,9,10,11 These skills appear to provide the foundation for
school readiness through cognition and behaviour.3,12 Children with better executive function skills
may be more teachable.3 Indeed, in a high-risk sample, children with better executive function
skills at the beginning of kindergarten showed greater gains in literacy and numeracy than
children with poorer initial skills.12 Considering there is evidence that the achievement gap persists
and may even widen across the school years,16,17 it is critical that high-risk children begin school
with as successful of a start as possible.

For this reason, there has been increased attention to interventions that promote executive
function. Although there is evidence that executive function is malleable,18,33 few interventions
have attempted to boost skills in children currently experiencing toxic levels of stress. Efforts to
design interventions that promote executive function in these children may need to address
current levels of stress exposure and simultaneously work to reduce these to gain maximum
benefit.

Implications for Parents, Services and Policy

Research to date underscores the importance of executive function skills for school success,
especially for children living in high-risk environments. Programs designed to boost executive
function have shown success across multiple levels, including school curriculum, computer-based
training, and even physical activities, like martial arts.18,33,34 Similar to computer-based training,
parents may be able to promote these skills with games that require turn-taking, attention skills,
and memory. Furthermore, sensitive caregiving may promote these skills by shielding children
from some of the chaos they are experiencing.35

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Executive function skills also have been successfully targeted through school-based curriculum in
preschool26 and Head Start classrooms.4,34 Experimental evidence suggests early childhood
classrooms, like Head Start, can successfully build executive function skills by providing more self-
regulatory support in a classroom (e.g., implementing clear rules and routines, redirecting or
rewarding children’s behaviour).34 Increasing attention to executive function skills in early
childhood programs may reduce the achievement gap that is apparent before school begins and
persists throughout the school years.

References

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2. Zelazo PD, Anderson JE, Richler J, Wallner-Allen K, Beaumont JL, Weintraub S. NIH toolbox cognitive function battery (CFB):
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literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Dev. 2007;78:647-663.

20. Holmes J, Gathercole SE, Dunning DL. Adaptive training leads to sustained enhancement of poor working memory in
children. Developmental Sci. 2009;12:F9-F15.

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23. Bergman-Nutley S, Söderqvist S, Bryde S, Thorell LB, Humphreys K, Klingberg T. Gains in fluid intelligence after training
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25. Bodrova E, Leong DJ. Tools of the Mind: The Vygotskian approach to early childhood education. ed. 2. New York:
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27. Wilson SJ, Farran DC. Experimental evaluation of the Tools of the Mind preschool curriculum. Paper presented at the Society
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31. Mischel W, Shoda Y, Rodriguez ML. Delay of gratification in children. Science. 1989;244:933-938.

32. Sethi A, Mischel W, Aber JL, Shoda Y, Rodriguez, ML. The role of strategic attention deployment in development of self-
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Cognitive Control and Self-Regulation in Young
Children: Ways to Improve Them and Why
[Slideshow]
Adele Diamond, PhD, FRSC

Canada Research Chair Tier 1 Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, University of

British Columbia (UBC), Canada
January 2013

Presented at the International conference School Readiness and School Success: from Research to
Policy and Practice. November 12-13, 2009, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

Download the PDF version of this slideshow

©2013-2024 CEECD | EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS 61