Development of Executive Functions Through Late Childhood and Adolescence in an Australian Sample

Anderson, Vicki; Anderson, Peter J.; Northam, Elisabeth; Jacobs, Rani; Catroppa, Cathy

doi:10.1207/s15326942dn2001_5

Cited by 667 publications

(571 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…That is, fewer errors were made in the late adolescent and young adult age groups irrespective of whether the task required divided attention, selective attention and inhibition of distractors, working memory, or modality switching. Some previous studies have found that different aspects of executive function mature at different rates during adolescence (Anderson, Anderson, Northam, Jacobs, & Catroppa, 2001), but our results imply that more general aspects of executive functioning mature during this time. In sum, our behavioral findings suggest that (a) different measures of executive functioning rely, at least to some extent, on a domain‐general capacity which is already evident during middle adolescence and that (b) this capacity matures from middle adolescence to late adolescence and early adulthood, producing uniform improvements across different executive task types.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 66%

Neural activity patterns between different executive tasks are more similar in adulthood than in adolescence

et al. 2018

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BackgroundAdolescence is a time of ongoing neural maturation and cognitive development, especially regarding executive functions. In the current study, age‐related differences in the neural correlates of different executive functions were tracked by comparing three age groups consisting of adolescents and young adults.MethodsBrain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) from 167 human participants (13‐ to 14‐year‐old middle adolescents, 16‐ to 17‐year‐old late adolescents and 20‐ to 24‐year‐old young adults; 80 female, 87 male) while they performed attention and working memory tasks. The tasks were designed to tap into four putative sub‐processes of executive function: division of attention, inhibition of distractors, working memory, and attention switching.ResultsBehaviorally, our results demonstrated superior task performance in older participants across all task types. When brain activity was examined, young adult participants demonstrated a greater degree of overlap between brain regions recruited by the different executive tasks than adolescent participants. Similarly, functional connectivity between frontoparietal cortical regions was less task specific in the young adult participants than in adolescent participants.ConclusionsTogether, these results demonstrate that the similarity between different executive processes in terms of both neural recruitment and functional connectivity increases with age from middle adolescence to early adulthood, possibly contributing to age‐related behavioral improvements in executive functioning. These developmental changes in brain recruitment may reflect a more homogenous morphological organization between process‐specific neural networks, increased reliance on a more domain‐general network involved in executive processing, or developmental changes in cognitive strategy.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 66%

Neural activity patterns between different executive tasks are more similar in adulthood than in adolescence

et al. 2018

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“…43 The development of executive function in childhood coincides with maturational growth spurts in the frontal lobes. 44 Early insults in the intrauterine environment may impair the development of neural architecture in the frontal lobes that is necessary for the later development of complex executive functions. 45 IUGR has been demonstrated to lead to a reduction in frontal volume, identifiable through both MRI 46 and sonographic biometric estimation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential effect of intrauterine growth restriction on childhood neurodevelopment: a systematic review

Murray

Fernandes

Fazel

et al. 2015

BJOG

217

149

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Background Neurodevelopmental disorders are increasingly believed to originate from intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). Current reviews exploring the neurodevelopmental effects of IUGR, however, are mostly based on birthweight, an inadequate proxy. Objective We aimed to examine the association between IUGR documented in utero, and neurodevelopmental outcomes during childhood. Search strategy Medline, CINAHL, PsycInfo and Scopus were searched for relevant studies published after 1970. Selection criteria The analysis included studies that identified IUGR in utero, with follow‐up assessments between 1 month and 12 years of age. Data collection and analysis Data was extracted for cognitive, behavioural, language, motor, hearing, vision or sleep outcomes. Studies were summarised separately for children born at <35 and ≥35 weeks gestation. Main results Of 28 876 titles identified, 38 were suitable for inclusion. IUGR children born ≥35 weeks gestation scored on average 0.5 SD lower than non‐IUGR children across all neurodevelopmental assessments. IUGR children born <35 weeks of gestation scored approximately 0.7 SD lower than non‐IUGR children across all neurodevelopmental assessments. IUGR children with evidence of fetal circulatory redistribution (preferential perfusion of the brain) had more severe neurodevelopmental impairments than those born IUGR alone. Conclusions IUGR increases the risk of neurodevelopmental impairment during childhood differentially across domains. IUGR children born preterm or with evidence of fetal circulatory redistribution are more severely affected. Tweetable abstract IUGR is associated with an overall risk for neurodevelopmental delay in a range of neurodevelopmental domains.

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“…Because the ability to control attention remains immature until developments in mid to late adolescents (Anderson et al, 2001), the pattern of poor disengagement found in Study 3 may be characteristic of lonely children and adolescents only; this same pattern of viewing behaviour may not be evident amongst adults whose cognitive skills are more developed (see Puliafico, & Kendall, 2006). Thus, future research should examine the attention biases of lonely adolescents and adults to determine whether there are any changes in attention bias due to cognitive maturity.…”

Section: Implications For Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…First, given that cognitive processes develop throughout childhood and adolescence based on neurological changes during this time (Luna, Garver, Urban, Lazar, & Sweeney, 2004), we might expect lonely children to show a different pattern of hypervigilance to social threat compared to adults. For example, compared to adults, children display inferior abilities to consciously relocate attention (Pearson & Lane, 1991;Anderson, Anderson, Northam, Jacobs, & Catroppa, 2001), suggesting that lonely children may be more hypervigilant to social threat than lonely adults and/or show problems of disengagement from (possible) social threats. Given that children do not have mature attentional abilities, findings from the adult literature on HSTH should not be generalised to children.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Hypervigilance for Social Threat of Lonely Children

Qualter¹,

Rotenberg

Barrett³

et al. 2012

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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This series of studies is the first to examine hypervigilance for social threat among lonely children and the first to establish this link using eye-tracking technology. Hypervigilance for social threat was operationalised as hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion in a variation of the hostile attribution paradigm (Study 1), scores on the Children's RejectionSensitivity Questionnaire (Study 2), and visual attention to socially threatening stimuli (Study 3). The participants were 185 children (11 years -7 months to 12 years -6 months), 248 children (9 years -4 months to 11 years -8 months) and 147 children (8 years -10 months to 12 years -10 months) in the three studies, respectively. Regression analyses showed that, with depressive symptoms covaried, there were quadratic relations between loneliness and these different measures of hypervigilance to social threat. As hypothesized, only children in the upper range of loneliness demonstrated elevated hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion, higher scores on the rejection sensitivity questionnaire, and disengagement difficulties when viewing socially threatening stimuli. We found that very lonely children are hypersensitive to social threat.Key words: Loneliness; Children; Hypervigilance; Social Threat; Rejection; Hypersensitivity, Rejection-sensitivity; Eye movement; Attentional bias.Running Head: LONELINESS AND HYPERVIGILANCE TO SOCIAL THREAT 4 Investigating Hypervigilance for Social Threat of Lonely ChildrenResearchers have examined the social information processing biases that serve to maintain loneliness. One such bias is conceptualized as the 'hypervigilance for social threat hypothesis' (HSTH), where it is argued that rejection sensitivity contributes to behavioral deficiencies (e.g., withdrawal) that undermine the opportunities to develop and maintain positive social relationships (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Several studies provide support for the HSTH in adults (Jones & Carver, 1991;Jones, Freemon & Goswick, 1981;Sloan & Solano, 1984), but there has been little work on this in children. Confirming the HSTH during childhood is important because it would indicate that this form of social information bias is evident during development and, therefore, a potential contributor to the persistence of loneliness from childhood through to adulthood, which itself predicts mental and physical health. Loneliness and social information processing biasesLoneliness is an unpleasant state that arises from a discrepancy between the interpersonal relationships people want to have, and those they perceive they currently have (Peplau & Perlman, 1982). Loneliness is not linked to the number of friends that a person has (Young, 1982;Qualter & Munn, 2005). It is a prevalent problem in children, adolescents and adults (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008; Rotenberg & Hymel, 1999), and is acknowledged in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR: American Psychiatric Association, 2000) because it often causes significant distress a...

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Development of Executive Functions Through Late Childhood and Adolescence in an Australian Sample

Cited by 667 publications

References 34 publications

Neural activity patterns between different executive tasks are more similar in adulthood than in adolescence

Neural activity patterns between different executive tasks are more similar in adulthood than in adolescence

Differential effect of intrauterine growth restriction on childhood neurodevelopment: a systematic review

Investigating Hypervigilance for Social Threat of Lonely Children

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