A working memory span task for toddlers

Conceptualizing avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder via an executive functioning lens

Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a heterogeneous disorder wherein restrictive eating is primarily attributed to non-shape/weight-based reasons (e.g., sensory sensitivity) that empirical research continues to explore. Mounting evidence suggests that ARFID often presents alongside neurodevelopmental diagnoses (NDs) or divergent neurodevelopment broadly. Executive functioning (EF) differences often characterize divergent neurodevelopmental trajectories. Additionally, restrictive eating in anorexia nervosa has been conceptualized as related to EF factors (e.g., set shifting). Given the neurodevelopmental phenotype that may be associated with ARFID and the role of EF in anorexia nervosa, this paper proposes EF as a potentially important, yet understudied factor in ARFID pathology. We posit that various observed ARFID behavioral/cognitive tendencies can be conceptualized in relation to EF differences. We contextualize commonly observed ARFID presentations within "core" EF components (i.e., cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibitory control), leading to hypotheses about EF in ARFID. Finally, we offer additional considerations/directions for future research on EF in ARFID. Increased research on EF in ARFID is needed to consider this potential common factor in the etiology and maintenance of this heterogeneous disorder. We aim to promote further consideration of EF in ARFID etiology, maintenance, and treatment-outcome research. PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE: This article proposes that aspects of executive functioning (EF) may play a role in the onset and maintenance of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), although this notion is largely untested by existing research. Further research on the role of EF in ARFID may assist with refining models and treatments for this heterogeneous disorder.

The successful use of a search strategy improves with visuospatial working memory in 2- to 4.5-year-olds

Using spatial cues such as shape, orientation, and pattern aids visuospatial working memory because it allows strategies that reduce the load on this cognitive resource. One such strategy, namely taking advantage of patterned spatial distributions, remains understudied to date. This strategy demands keeping track of already-searched locations and excluding them from further search and so correlates with visuospatial working memory. The use of such strategies should, in principle, develop in early childhood, but because most studies focus on chunking, the development of other strategies reducing the load on working memory is understudied in young children. Therefore, in this study we tested whether children aged 2 to 4.5 years (N = 97) could take advantage of spatial cues in their search and whether this ability correlated with their age, verbal ability, and visuospatial working memory. The results showed that the ability to use a patterned spatial distribution (searching a row of locations from one side to the other instead of a random search) significantly improved with visuospatial working memory but not with age or verbal ability. These results suggest that visuospatial abilities may rapidly develop from 2 to 4.5 years of age, and given their impact on later mathematic achievement, demand increased attention in cognitive developmental research and early childhood education.

Tracking what went where across toddlerhood: Feature-location bound object representations in 2- to 3-year-olds' working memory

Two experiments examined the development of the ability to encode, maintain, and update integrated representations of occluded objects' locations and featural identities in working memory across toddlerhood. Sixty-eight 28- to 40-month-old US toddlers (13 Asian or Pacific Islander, 6 Black, 48 White, 1 multiracial; 40 girls; tested between February 2015 and July 2017) tracked the locations of different color beads that were hidden simultaneously (Experiment 1) or sequentially (Experiment 2). Toddlers' ability to reliably store feature-location bound object representations in working memory varied as a function of age, memory load, and task demands. These results bridge a developmental gap between infancy and early childhood and provide new insights into sources of limitation and developmental change in children's early object representational capacities.

Executive Function, Language, and the Toddler's Discovery of Representational Drawing

Working memory capacity and executive functions play important roles in the early development of drawing and language, but we lack models that specify the relationships among these representational systems and cognitive functions in toddlers. To respond to this need, the present study investigated the relations between drawing and language in very young children, and the role of working memory capacity, inhibition, and shifting in the association between these two representational systems. The participants were 80 children, 25–37 months old. The results revealed that in toddlers (a) all the measures of working memory, inhibition, and shifting loaded on a single factor of general executive functioning; (b) language and drawing are two distinct, but substantially correlated, representational systems; and (c) the development of executive function has a strong impact on language development, which in turn influences the development of drawing.