Executive Functions after Age 5: Changes and Correlates

By J. Best, P. H. Miller, Lara L. Jones. Developmental Review, 2009

933 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Research and theorizing on executive function (EF) in childhood has been disproportionately focused on preschool age children. This review paper outlines the importance of examining EF throughout childhood, and even across the lifespan. First, examining EF in older children can address the question of whether EF is a unitary construct. The relations among the EF components, particularly as they are recruited for complex tasks, appear to change over the course of development. Second, much of the development of EF, especially working memory, shifting, and planning, occurs after age 5. Third, important applications of EF research concern the role of school-age children’s EF in various aspects of school performance, as well as social functioning and emotional control. Future research needs to examine a more complete developmental span, from early childhood through late adulthood, in order to address developmental issues adequately.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health, Psychiatry and Mental health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/511543e3872b069bbfdeffb49a2566cfc822dc12

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Citations in the corpus

The differentiation of executive functions in middle and late childhood: A longitudinal latent-variable analysis (2014, background): “It should be noted that a proportion of these improvements may be due to practice/retest effects (Calamia, Markon, & Tranel, 2012), however, there is also a large body of cross-sectional research (Best et al., 2009) that suggests that childhood development is a major driver of these improvements in ”
Shifting ability predicts math and reading performance in children: A meta-analytical study (2013, background): “Shifting and academic performance A growing body of evidence shows that executive function (EF) is a crucial contributor to school achievement (Best et al., 2009; Müller, Liebermann, Frye, & Zelazo, 2008).”
A unitary executive function predicts intelligence in children (2012, methodology): “Previous research has found that there are rapid changes in cognitive development between 7 and 11 years of age (Best et al., 2009; Cattell, 1967), such as marked improvements in speed of processing, use of strategies, working memory, inhibition, and task switching (Diamond, 2002).”
The Cognitive Reflection Test as a predictor of performance on heuristics-and-biases tasks (2011, background): “Recent work on the inhibitory and set-shifting properties of executive-functioning tasks makes this class of processes a potentially theoretically interesting correlate of performance on the CRT (Aron, 2008; Best, Miller, & Jones, 2009; Duncan et al., 2008; Friedman et al., 2007; Hasher, Lustig, &”
Enhancing Preschoolers’ Self-Regulation Via Mindful Yoga (2015, background): “2007) and socioemotional competence (Best et al. 2009; Calkins and Marcovitch 2010; Riggs et al. 2006b) across childhood.”
Specifying Links Between Executive Functioning and Theory of Mind during Middle Childhood: Cognitive Flexibility Predicts Social Understanding (2015, background): “One goal of this study was to specify the developmental trajectory of executive-functioning components and theory of mind from 7 to 12 years of age in response to recent calls for additional research focusing on middle childhood (Anderson, 2002; Best & Miller, 2010; Best et al., 2009).”