Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions
Executive functions include a set of higher-level cognitive control abilities, such as cognitive flexibility, inhibition, and working memory. They support action control and the flexible adaptation to changing environments. Given that these control functions rely on the prefrontal cortex, they devel...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | eng |
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Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
2015
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| Online Access: | https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/racc/article/view/64-70 |
| _version_ | 1802292354276655104 |
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| author | Karbach, Julia |
| author_facet | Karbach, Julia |
| author_sort | Karbach, Julia |
| collection | Portal de Revistas |
| description | Executive functions include a set of higher-level cognitive control abilities, such as cognitive flexibility, inhibition, and working memory. They support action control and the flexible adaptation to changing environments. Given that these control functions rely on the prefrontal cortex, they develop rapidly across childhood and adolescence. Importantly, executive control is a strong predictor for various life outcomes, such as academic achievement, socioeconomic status, and physical health. Therefore, numerous training interventions have been designed to improve executive functioning in children and adolescents, both in normally developing individuals and children suffering from neurocognitive and developmental disorders. Despite some encouraging findings revealing that executive control training benefitted untrained task and abilities, such as fluid intelligence and academic performance, recent findings regarding the transferability of training-induced performance improvements to untrained tasks are heterogeneous. This short review aims at providing a selective overview of developmental findings and discussing the effects of different types of executive control training in children and adolescents as well as the potential of cognitive training interventions for the application in clinical and educational contexts. |
| format | Online |
| id | oai:ojs.revistas.unc.edu.ar:article-10103 |
| institution | Universidad Nacional de Cordoba |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Universidad Nacional de Córdoba |
| record_format | ojs |
| spelling | oai:ojs.revistas.unc.edu.ar:article-101032019-05-27T16:15:03Z Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions Plasticidad de las funciones ejecutivas en la infancia y la adolescencia: efectos de intervenciones de entrenamiento cognitivo Karbach, Julia executive functions cognitive training childhood adolescence cognitive plasticity funciones ejecutivas entrenamiento cognitivo infancia adolescencia plasticidad cognitiva Executive functions include a set of higher-level cognitive control abilities, such as cognitive flexibility, inhibition, and working memory. They support action control and the flexible adaptation to changing environments. Given that these control functions rely on the prefrontal cortex, they develop rapidly across childhood and adolescence. Importantly, executive control is a strong predictor for various life outcomes, such as academic achievement, socioeconomic status, and physical health. Therefore, numerous training interventions have been designed to improve executive functioning in children and adolescents, both in normally developing individuals and children suffering from neurocognitive and developmental disorders. Despite some encouraging findings revealing that executive control training benefitted untrained task and abilities, such as fluid intelligence and academic performance, recent findings regarding the transferability of training-induced performance improvements to untrained tasks are heterogeneous. This short review aims at providing a selective overview of developmental findings and discussing the effects of different types of executive control training in children and adolescents as well as the potential of cognitive training interventions for the application in clinical and educational contexts. Las funciones ejecutivas incluyen a un conjunto de capacidades de control cognitivo de alto nivel, tales como la flexibilidad cognitiva, la inhibición y la memoria de trabajo, que permiten el control de las acciones y la adaptación flexible a entornos cambiantes. Teniendo en cuenta que estos procesamiento se asocian al funcionamiento de la corteza prefrontal, su desarrollo también se da de manera rápida a lo largo de la infancia y la adolescencia. Es importante destacar que el control ejecutivo es un predictor significativo de diversos aspectos de la vida cotidiana tales como el rendimiento académico, el estatus socioeconómico y la salud física. En tal sentido, se han diseñado numerosas intervenciones para mejorar el funcionamiento ejecutivo en niños y adolescentes, tanto en condiciones de desarrollo normal como en las de trastornos del desarrollo y neurocognitivos. Algunos hallazgos recientes alentadores revelan que el entrenamiento de las capacidades de control ejecutivo produce un beneficio en el desempeño en tareas y habilidades no entrenadas, como en el caso de la inteligencia fluida y el rendimiento académico. No obstante, los resultados recientes en relación con la transferencia de las mejoras del desempeño entrenado a las tareas sin entrenamiento, son heterogéneos. Esta breve revisión tiene como objetivo principal proporcionar un resumen de los principales resultados de estudios del desarrollo del control cognitivo, y discutir los efectos de diferentes tipos de entrenamiento de tales capacidades en niños y adolescentes, así como el potencial de las intervenciones de entrenamiento cognitivo para su aplicación en contextos clínicos y educativos. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba 2015-03-26 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion application/pdf https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/racc/article/view/64-70 Argentinean Journal of Behavioral Sciences; Vol. 7 No. 1 (2015): Número Especial: "Desarrollo de funciones ejecutivas - Development of executive functions" Revista Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento; Vol. 7 Núm. 1 (2015): Número Especial: "Desarrollo de funciones ejecutivas - Development of executive functions" 1852-4206 10.32348/1852.4206.v7.n1 eng https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/racc/article/view/64-70/Karbach_DE Derechos de autor 2015 Julia Karbach |
| spellingShingle | executive functions cognitive training childhood adolescence cognitive plasticity funciones ejecutivas entrenamiento cognitivo infancia adolescencia plasticidad cognitiva Karbach, Julia Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions |
| title | Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions |
| title_alt | Plasticidad de las funciones ejecutivas en la infancia y la adolescencia: efectos de intervenciones de entrenamiento cognitivo |
| title_full | Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions |
| title_fullStr | Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions |
| title_short | Plasticity of Executive Functions in Childhood and Adolescence: Effects of Cognitive Training Interventions |
| title_sort | plasticity of executive functions in childhood and adolescence effects of cognitive training interventions |
| topic | executive functions cognitive training childhood adolescence cognitive plasticity funciones ejecutivas entrenamiento cognitivo infancia adolescencia plasticidad cognitiva |
| topic_facet | executive functions cognitive training childhood adolescence cognitive plasticity funciones ejecutivas entrenamiento cognitivo infancia adolescencia plasticidad cognitiva |
| url | https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/racc/article/view/64-70 |
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