Working memory and recognition memory develop across adolescence, but the relationship between them is not fully understood. We investigated associations between n-back task performance and subsequent recognition memory in a community sample (8-30 yr, n = 150) using tasks from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study) to…

When telling a story, a speaker needs to refer to story characters using appropriate expressions, which requires a mental model of the discourse. We hypothesize that, compared to those of adults, children's discourse models are based more on factors that are less cognitively demanding, such as animacy, and as they grow older, discourse factors…

The current research aims at constructing a developmentally sensitive mindreading scale (i.e., a battery of tasks measuring different aspects of mindreading ability in children from 1 to 3.5 years of age). Over 300 Polish children were tested at six-month intervals with 48 different tasks designed to measure mindreading ability (for a total of six…

Children's lexical processing speed at 18 to 25 months of age has been linked to concurrent and later language abilities. In the current study, we extend this finding to children aged 36 months. Children (N = 126) participated in a lexical processing task in which they viewed two static images on noun trials (e.g., an ear of corn and a hat), or…

Variability is a fundamental feature of human brain activity that is particularly pronounced during development. However, developmental neuroimaging research has only recently begun to move beyond characterizing brain function exclusively in terms of magnitude of neural activation to incorporate estimates of variability. No prior neuroimaging…

In a previous study, we reported the first measurements of pre-movement and sensorimotor cortex activity in preschool age children (ages 3-5 years) using a customized pediatric magnetoencephalographic system. Movement-related activity in the sensorimotor cortex differed from that typically observed in adults, suggesting that maturation of cortical…

In this longitudinal study, we explored children's reasoning about social inclusion/exclusion at Year 1 and Year 3 (n = 169 Year 1, n = 129 Year 3) of early primary education in Australia and how this reasoning related to changes in children's epistemic cognition. The data collection involved 30-minute interviews in which children were asked to…

Although the literature consistently documents strong improvements in metacognitive skills over the elementary school years, relatively little is known about the mechanisms fueling these developments. One factor that is being discussed in the literature and targeted in the present approach is cue utilization. Cue utilization quantifies the degree…

The study examines the concurrent and longitudinal associations between ratings-based measures (parents, secondary caregivers, and observers) and performance-based measures of focused attention in toddlers aged 30 (n = 147), 36 (n = 127), and 42 months (n = 107). Parents and secondary caregivers rated focused attention behaviours using the…

This longitudinal study examined the development of narrative micro- and macrostructure in Japanese-English bilingual returnee children. Returnees are children of immigrant families who move to a foreign country, spending a significant portion of their formative developmental years in the foreign majority language context before returning to their…

The purpose of this study was to examine early fast mapping abilities in late talkers (LT) and typically developing (TD) Spanish-speaking children by considering the effect of different variables on fast mapping (age, vocabulary level, grammatical category and number morphology). Thirty-eight Spanish-speaking children were assessed at three times…

Forty-one high-risk infants (HR) with an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were observed longitudinally at 10, 12, 18 and 24 months of age during a tool use task in a play-like scenario. Changes in grasp types and functional actions produced with a spoon were assessed during elicited tool use. Outcome and vocabulary measures were…

This study reveals hitherto overlooked effects of age of onset (AO) in immersive school contexts, using multiple measures over time so as to focus on fluctuations and trends in individual data. The second language (L2) English development was studied in 91 children who received 50-50 content and language integrated learning (CLIL) instruction in…

This article reports results from a longitudinal study from age 4 to 7 of comprehension and production of narrative macrostructure in Swedish monolingual children (N = 17). "Baby Birds/Baby Goats" from the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN) were used to elicit narratives and ask comprehension questions at age…

Many researchers have used the standard Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) to assess decision-making in adolescence given increased risk-taking during this developmental period. Most studies are cross-sectional and do not observe behavioral trajectories over time, limiting interpretation. This longitudinal study investigated healthy adolescents' and young…