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Executive functions (EFs; working memory [WM], inhibition, and shifting) are widely known to play a critical role in school achievement. Among these EFs, WM appears to be implicated in numeracy and literacy. The contribution of inhibition and shifting to school achievement is less clear. Given the existing divergences in the literature and the importance of the interindividual differences in these domains, it seems important to assess EFs and scholastic skills in the same elementary school children. However, studies providing such an assessment are scarce. We explored whether EFs differentially contribute to mathematics, reading, and spelling skills in fourth-grade children (N = 71). The results revealed that (a) WM and inhibition accounted for unique variance in mathematics skills, (b) WM and shifting accounted for unique variance in reading skills, and (c) only shifting accounted for unique variance in spelling skills. The implications of these findings for children and teachers are discussed.

Solving simple arithmetic word problems is a major ability that children must acquire throughout the primary-grade mathematics curriculum. However, this skill is often challenging for them. For instance, "unknown referent problems" are more difficult to solve than "unknown compare problems." In unknown compare problems, the relational term (e.g., "more than") is consistent with the arithmetic operation (e.g., addition) required to find the solution, whereas in unknown referent problems, the relational term (e.g., "more than") is inconsistent with the arithmetic operation (i.e., subtraction). To determine whether solving unknown referent problems relies on the ability to inhibit the heuristic "add if more, subtract if less" strategy, we devised a negative priming (NP) paradigm for children, adolescents, and adults. For each test trial, an unknown referent problem served as a prime, in which the inhibition of the heuristic strategy was necessary and was immediately followed by an unknown compare problem that served as a probe, in which the heuristic strategy became the appropriate strategy to use. For each control trial, a neutral problem served as a prime and was followed by an unknown compare problem as a probe. All participants performed the unknown compare problems more slowly when they were preceded by unknown referent problems, which reflected typical NP effects. Our results confirm that success in completing unknown referent problems reveals not only participants' ability to grasp the underlying logic of the problem but also their ability to inhibit a misleading strategy. This study sheds light on the importance of inhibitory control in learning mathematics.

Children and adolescents often make grammatical errors in sentences such as saying “the friend of our neighbors smile” instead of “the friend of our neighbor smiles”. Recent research suggests that these attraction errors arise because they fail to inhibit an automated but inappropriate heuristic strategy that makes them blindly agree the verb with the immediately preceding word. However, it is unclear whether these errors predominantly result from a failure to complete the inhibition or from a failure to detect that the strategy is erroneous and needs to be inhibited in the first place. The present study focuses on a test of the critical error detection sensitivity issue. Children and adolescents were asked to solve grammatical problems and indicated their response confidence. Adolescents showed a clear confidence decrease after having committed an attraction error which was less pronounced in the group of children. This indicates that although children might not detect the inappropriate nature of their answer, adolescents have a better grammatical understanding than their errors seem to suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who participate in neuroimaging research most likely revise their naïve conceptions about the brain, the mind and their relation. Our aim was to explore this educational effect by comparing two groups of 8-year-old children with and without MRI experiences. Our Mind–Brain Questionnaire allowed us to explore the participants’ naïve conceptions through different cognitive functions. The results revealed that the MRI group had a better understanding than the control group of the relation between the mind and the brain, especially for mental functions (dreaming and imagining), suggesting that the control group had more difficulty materializing the mind into the brain. This relation was less clear for basic (seeing and talking) and scholastic (reading and counting) functions. These results suggest that information regarding neuroimaging studies offers a complementary brain education program that could be implemented in a pedagogical project to encourage opportunities for teaching developmental cognitive neuroscience in classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although the development of executive functions has been extensively investigated at a neurofunctional level, studies of the structural relationships between executive functions and brain anatomy are still scarce. Based on our previous meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies examining executive functions in children (Houdé, Rossi, Lubin, and Joliot, (2010). Developmental Science, 13, 876–885), we investigated six a priori regions of interest: the left anterior insular cortex (AIC), the left and the right supplementary motor areas, the right middle and superior frontal gyri, and the left precentral gyrus. Structural magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 22 to 10-year-old children. Local gray matter volumes, assessed automatically using a standard voxel-based morphometry approach, were correlated with executive and storage working memory capacities evaluated using backward and forward digit span tasks, respectively. We found an association between smaller gray matter volume – i.e., an index of neural maturation – in the left AIC and high backward memory span while gray matter volumes in the a priori selected regions of interest were not linked with forward memory span. These results were corroborated by a whole-brain a priori free analysis that revealed a significant negative correlation in the frontal and prefrontal regions, including the left AIC, with the backward memory span, and in the right inferior parietal lobe, with the forward memory span. Taken together, these results suggest a distinct and specific association between regional gray matter volume and the executive component vs. the storage component of working memory. Moreover, they support a key role for the AIC in the executive network of children. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]