Development of inhibition and switching: A longitudinal study of the maturation of interference suppression and reversal processes during childhood.

Inhibition and switching are executive functions (EFs) that have different developmental trajectories across childhood. The development of specific processes unique to each EF may contribute to these trajectories. Interference suppression and reversal were examined in a large sample of children aged 7 and 9 years (n = 120) and followed-up after two-years to investigate developmental trajectories of inhibition and switching. The N2 and P3b components provided neural correlates of conflict monitoring and attentional processing of conflict involved in interference suppression and reversal. Interference suppression improved over time, however, switching performance did not significantly change between 7 and 11 years. Improvements in correct RT with age and time indicated increased efficiency of stimulus evaluation, response preparation and execution. N2 amplitude decreased with both age and time, indicating less reliance on conflict monitoring to signal cognitive control to manage stimulus and response conflict. P3b amplitude modulations indicated that different amounts of attention were allocated to updating mental representations of interference suppression and reversal task features. These data indicated different developmental trajectories of specific processes unique to inhibition and switching across the childhood period of 7-11 years, providing further empirical evidence that 7-11 years is a critical period for cognitive development.

Cognitive outcomes in children and adolescents born very preterm: a meta-analysis.

AIM: To estimate the association between very preterm birth (<32wks' gestation) and intelligence, executive functioning, and processing speed throughout childhood and adolescence, and to examine the effects of gestational age, birthweight, and age at assessment. METHOD: Studies were included if children were born at earlier than 32 weeks' gestation, aged 4 to 17 years, had an age-matched term control group, and if the studies used standardized measures, were published in an English-language peer-reviewed journal, and placed no restrictions on participants based on task performance. RESULTS: We evaluated 6163 children born very preterm and 5471 term-born controls from 60 studies. Children born very preterm scored 0.82 SDs (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.74-0.90; p<0.001) lower on intelligence tests, 0.51 SDs (95% CI 0.44-0.58; p<0.001) lower on measures of executive functioning, and 0.49 SDs (95% CI 0.39-0.60; p<0.001) lower on measures of processing speed than term-born controls. Gestational age and birthweight were associated with study effect size in intelligence and executive functioning of younger children only. Age at assessment was not associated with study effect size. INTERPRETATION: Children born very preterm have medium to large deficits in these cognitive domains. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: This meta-analysis is centred on very preterm birth and three cognitive domains. The three critical cognitive domains are intelligence, executive functioning, and processing speed.

Therapeutic alliance in videoconferencing psychotherapy: a review.

Psychotherapy services are limited in remote and rural areas in Australia and across the globe. Videoconferencing has become well established as a feasible and acceptable mode of psychological treatment delivery. Therapeutic alliance (TA) is an essential factor underlying successful therapy across therapeutic models. In order to determine the state of knowledge regarding TA in psychotherapy via videoconferencing, a literature review was conducted on research studies that formally measured TA as primary, secondary or tertiary outcome measures over the past 23 years. The databases searched were Medline, PsycArticles, PsycINFO, PsycEXTRA and EMBASE. Searching identified 9915 articles that measured satisfaction, acceptability or therapeutic rapport, of which 23 met criteria for the review. Three studies were carried out in Australia, 11 in USA, 4 in Canada, 3 in Scotland and 2 in England. Studies overwhelmingly supported the notion that TA can be developed in psychotherapy by videoconference, with clients rating bond and presence at least equally as strongly as in-person settings across a range of diagnostic groups. Therapists also rated high levels of TA, but often not quite as high as that of their clients early in treatment. The evidence was examined in the context of important aspects of TA, including bond, presence, therapist attitudes and abilities, and client attitudes and beliefs. Barriers and facilitators of alliance were identified. Future studies should include observational measures of bond and presence to supplement self-report.

Predictive validity of the N2 and P3 ERP components to executive functioning in children: a latent-variable analysis.

Executive functions (EFs) are commonly theorized to be related yet separable constructs in adults, and specific EFs, such as prepotent response inhibition and working memory, are thought to have clear and distinct neural underpinnings. However, recent evidence suggests that EFs are unitary in children up to about 9 years of age. The aim of the current study was to test the hypothesis that peaks of the event-related potential (ERP) of specific EFs are related to behavioral performance, despite EFs being psychometrically indistinguishable in children. Specifically, N2 difference waveform (associated with cognitive control and response inhibition) and P3b peak (associated with updating of working memory) latent variables were created and entered into confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models with a unitary executive functioning factor. Children aged 7-9 years (N = 215) completed eight measures of inhibition, working memory, and shifting. A modified flanker task was also completed during which EEG data were recorded. The N2 difference waveform and P3b mean amplitude factors both significantly correlated with (and were predictors of) the executive functioning factor, but the P3b latency factor did not. These results provide evidence of the electrophysiological indices of EFs being observable before the associated behavioral constructs are distinguishable from each other. From this, it is possible that ERPs could be used as a sensitive measure of development in the context of evaluation for neuropsychological interventions.

Maturation of cognitive control: delineating response inhibition and interference suppression.

Cognitive control is integral to the ability to attend to a relevant task whilst suppressing distracting information or inhibiting prepotent responses. The current study examined the development of these two subprocesses by examining electrophysiological indices elicited during each process. Thirteen 18 year-old adults and thirteen children aged 8-11 years (mean=9.77 years) completed a hybrid Go/Nogo flanker task while continuous EEG data were recorded. The N2 topography for both response inhibition and interference suppression changed with increasing age. The neural activation associated with response inhibition became increasingly frontally distributed with age, and showed decreases of both amplitude and peak latency from childhood to adulthood, possibly due to reduced cognitive demands and myelination respectively occurring during this period. Interestingly, a significant N2 effect was apparent in adults, but not observed in children during trials requiring interference suppression. This could be due to more diffuse activation in children, which would require smaller levels of activation over a larger region of the brain than is reported in adults. Overall, these results provide evidence of distinct maturational processes occurring throughout late childhood and adolescence, highlighting the separability of response inhibition and interference suppression.

Maturation of rapid auditory temporal processing and subsequent nonword repetition performance in children.

According to the rapid auditory processing theory, the ability to parse incoming auditory information underpins learning of oral and written language. There is wide variation in this low-level perceptual ability, which appears to follow a protracted developmental course. We studied the development of rapid auditory processing using event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by tone pairs presented at varying inter-stimulus intervals (25, 50, 100, 200, and 400 ms) in a sample of children (N = 103) aged 7-9 years initially and again at 9-11 years. We also assessed their ability to repeat nonsense words at both time-points. The amount of difference between the ERP to single tones and paired tones (as assessed by the intra-class correlation coefficient, ICC) provided a measure of the brain's capacity to discriminate auditory information delivered at different presentation rates. Results showed that older children showed greater neural discrimination to tone pairs than younger children at rapid presentation rates, although these differences were reduced at slower presentation rates. The ICC at time 1 significantly predicted nonword repetition scores two years later, providing support for the view that rapid auditory temporal processing ability affects oral language development in typically developing children.

Neural indicators of error processing and intraindividual variability in reaction time in 7 and 9 year-olds.

Childhood is associated with improvements in task accuracy, response time, and reductions in intraindividual trial-to-trial variability in reaction times. The aims of this study were to investigate neural indicators of error monitoring to better understand the mechanisms underlying these cognitive developments in primary school aged children. Specifically, this study explored the development of error processing in 36 children aged 7 years and 41 children aged 9 years, as indexed by two electrophysiological indices of error processing, the error-related negativity (ERN) and the error positivity (Pe). Notably, the amplitude and latency of the ERN and Pe did not differ significantly between the age groups. However, intraindividual variability in response time (RT) was strongly related to ERN amplitude. These data suggest the utility of comparing neural and behavioral indicators of cognitive performance in children and uniquely highlight the importance of considering intraindividual variability in task performance in studies that explore error processing.