ABSTRACT
The close association between executive functions (EFs) and educational achievement has led to the idea that targeted EF training might facilitate learning and goal-directed behavior in the classroom. The evidence that training interventions have long-lasting and transferable effects is however decidedly mixed (Melby-Lervåg and Hulme, 2013; Simons et al., 2016). The goal of the current paper is to propose a new CanDiD framework for re-thinking EF and its links to education. Based on findings from basic EF research, the proposed CanDiD framework highlights dynamic and contextual influences on EF and emphasizes the importance of development and individual differences for understanding these effects. Implications for remedial interventions and curriculum design are discussed.
ABSTRACT
Adversity impacts many aspects of psychological and physical development including reward-based learning and decision-making. Mechanisms relating adversity and reward processing in children, however, remain unclear. Here, we show that adversity is associated with potentiated learning from positive outcomes and impulsive decision-making, but unrelated to learning from negative outcomes. We then show via functional magnetic resonance imaging that the link between adversity and reward processing is partially mediated by differences in ventral striatal response to rewards. The findings suggest that early-life adversity is associated with alterations in the brain's sensitivity to rewards accounting, in part, for the link between adversity and altered reward processing in children.
