Development and plasticity of cognitive flexibility in early and middle childhood

  • Cognitive flexibility, the ability to flexibly switch between tasks, is a core dimension of executive functions (EFs) allowing to control actions and to adapt flexibly to changing environments. It supports the management of multiple tasks, the development of novel, adaptive behavior and is associated with various life outcomes. Cognitive flexibility develops rapidly in preschool and continuously increases well into adolescence, mirroring the growth of neural networks involving the prefrontal cortex. Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in interventions designed to improve cognitive flexibility in children in order to support the many developmental outcomes associated with cognitive flexibility. This article provides a brief review of the development and plasticity of cognitive flexibility across early and middle childhood (i.e., from preschool to elementary school age). Focusing on interventions designed to improve cognitive flexibility in typically developing children, we report evidence for significant training and transfer effects while acknowledging that current findings on transfer are heterogeneous. Finally, we introduce metacognitive training as a promising new approach to promote cognitive flexibility and to support transfer of training.

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Author:Frances Buttelmann, Julia KarbachGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-443643
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01040
ISSN:1664-1078
Pubmed Id:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28676784
Parent Title (English):Frontiers in psychology
Publisher:Frontiers Research Foundation
Place of publication:Lausanne
Contributor(s):Claudia von Bastian
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of Completion:2017
Date of first Publication:2017/06/20
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2017/11/28
Tag:DCCS; childhood; cognitive flexibility; executive functions; intervention; metacognition; task switching
Volume:8
Issue:Art. 1040
Page Number:6
First Page:1
Last Page:6
Note:
Copyright © 2017 Buttelmann and Karbach. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
HeBIS-PPN:425190544
Institutes:Psychologie und Sportwissenschaften / Psychologie
Dewey Decimal Classification:1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0