This study examines the extent to which iron deficiency in infancy contributes to adverse neurocognitive and educational outcomes in young adulthood directly and indirectly, through its influence on verbal cognition and attention problems in childhood. Young adults (N = 1,000, M age = 21.3 years, 52% female; of Spanish or indigenous descent) from…

The current investigation reports the results of a randomized controlled trial of a brief, relational intervention for maltreated preschool-aged children and their mothers, called Reminiscing and Emotion Training (RET). RET facilitates elaborative and emotionally supportive parent-child communication, which is an essential component of the…

Intraindividual variability (IIV) in cognitive speed, or moment-to-moment changes in ability, is a developmental phenomenon indicative of neurological integrity that increases gradually across adulthood. Past research has shown that IIV negatively covaries with cognitive performance, in which higher IIV at one occasion is associated with poorer…

In a seminal study Simcock and Hayne (2002) showed that 3-year-olds were unable to use newly acquired words to describe a "magic" event experienced 6 or 12 months earlier. In the reference study the children's verbal recall was tested without props being present. Inspired by recent evidence, the original design was replicated, testing…

Aging-related declines occur in many different domains of cognitive function during middle and late adulthood. However, whether a global dimension underlies individual differences in changes in different domains of cognition and whether global genetic influences on cognitive changes exist is less clear. We addressed these issues by applying…

Research suggests that executive functioning skills may enhance the school readiness of children from disadvantaged homes. Questions remain, however, concerning both the structure and the stability of executive functioning among preschoolers. In addition, there is a lack of research addressing potential predictors of longitudinal change in…

Previous analyses have identified a genetic contribution to the correlation between declines with age in processing speed and higher cognitive abilities. The goal of the current analysis was to apply the biometric dual change score model to consider the possibility of temporal dynamics underlying the genetic covariance between aging trajectories…

According to the mental-state reasoning model of suggestibility, 2 components of theory of mind mediate reductions in suggestibility across the preschool years. The authors examined whether theory-of-mind performance may be legitimately separated into 2 components and explored the memory processes underlying the associations between theory of mind…

Relations between infant information processing and specific cognitive outcomes at age 11 years were examined in a sample of preterm and full-term infants. Seven-month visual recognition memory and 1-year cross-modal transfer predicted 11-year intelligence quotient (IQ). (MDM)

It is evident from this task that preschool children can remember simple pictures as well as their names, that either pictorial or verbal codes can mediate memory of either pictures or words in accordance with task demands, and that same-different judgments tend to be faster to pictures than to words. (Author)

Assessed age-related changes in 2- to 4-year olds' verbal and nonverbal memory for the same unique event. Found that children's performance on each memory measure increased as a function of age. Children with more advanced language skills reported more during the verbal interview and exhibited superior nonverbal memory relative to children with…

A series of possible explanations for learning disabilities (LDS) couched in terms of information processing capabilities was tested by comparing the performance of LDS children on several types of information processing tasks with that of a control group. Subjects were 28 LDS children (10-11 years old) and 24 elementary school students of the…

Collected data on twins' performance on 13 cognitive variables measured three times at three-year intervals. Twins were monozygotic or dizygotic pairs reared together or apart and were in six cohorts ranging in age from 41 through 84 years. Found stable mean cognitive performance across time on eight measures for the younger cohorts, and…