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Process-based working memory (WM) training in typically developing children usually leads to short- and long-term improvements on untrained WM tasks. However, results are mixed regarding far transfer to academic and cognitive abilities. Moreover, there is a lack of studies jointly evaluating the different types of transfer, using an adequate design and considering motivational factors. In addition, evidence is needed about how pre-training performance is related to individual differences in training-induced transfer. Therefore, this study aimed to implement and evaluate the efficacy of a computerized process-based WM training in typically developing school-age children. Near and far transfer effects were evaluated both immediately after training and after 6 months, as well as individual differences in training-induced transfer. The sample was composed of 89 typically developing children aged 9-10 years (M = 9.52, SD = 0.30), who were randomized to a WM training group or an active control group. They were evaluated at pre-training, post-training, and follow-up phases with measures of visuospatial and verbal WM, reading comprehension, math computation, and fluid intelligence. Results showed that the training group significantly improved performance in verbal WM and fluid intelligence compared to the active control group, immediately after training and after 6 months. Trained children with lower initial performance in verbal WM or fluid intelligence showed greater transfer gains. No group differences were found in motivational factors. Findings of this study suggest that process-based WM training may promote transfer to cognitive abilities and lead to compensation effects of individual differences in typically developing school-age children.

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Antecedentes: distintos autores indican que las actitudes hacia las matemáticas, las funciones ejecutivas y el conocimiento matemático previo representan variables centrales en el aprendizaje de esta asignatura; no obstante, no se dispone de evidencia respecto a su contribución conjunta y relativa para la predicción del desempeño en matemáticas en estudiantes de nivel secundario. Objetivo general: analizar la contribución de la competencia percibida, el gusto por las matemáticas, las funciones ejecutivas y el conocimiento previo en la predicción del desempeño en matemáticas en estudiantes de primer y segundo año del nivel secundario. Método: participaron 178 estudiantes de los primeros años de secundaria (edad M = 13.4 años, DE = .32; 45.5% varones). Resultados: se halló que el conjunto de variables explicó el 49% de la varianza en el desempeño en matemáticas, siendo la competencia percibida, el gusto por las matemáticas y la memoria de trabajo predictores significativos. No se hallaron diferencias en la fuerza de la relación de la memoria de trabajo con el desempeño en matemáticas entre los años escolares analizados. Conclusiones: los aspectos actitudinales evaluados y la memoria de trabajo representan variables de importancia para predecir el desempeño en matemáticas en el nivel secundario. Palabras claves: desempeño académico; funciones ejecutivas; actitudes hacia las matemáticas; adolescentes.

Background: Different authors indicate that attitudes towards mathematics, executive functions, and prior mathematical knowledge represent central variables in mathematics learning; however, there is no evidence about their joint and relative contribution to the prediction of mathematics performance in high school students. Main goal: To analyze the contribution of perceived competence, mathematics enjoyment, executive functions, and prior knowledge in the prediction of mathematics performance in first and second-year high school students. Method: Participants were 178 students who were enrolled in the first two years of high school (Mage = 13.4 years, SD = .32; 45.5% boys). Results: The set of variables explained 49% of the variance in mathematics performance, with perceived competence, mathematics enjoyment, and working memory being significant predictors. No differences were found in the strength of the relationship between working memory and mathematics performance between the school years analyzed. Conclusions: The evaluated attitudinal aspects and working memory represent important variables to predict performance in mathematics at the secondary level. Keywords: academic achievement; executive functions; attitudes towards math; adolescents.

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Background: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have implemented preventive measures towards reducing infections. These conditions can affect the mental health of children and adolescents; however, this has not yet been fully explored. Objective: The aim of the study was to analyze changes in symptomatology and positive emotions in Argentine children and adolescents since the onset of isolation, based on parent/caregiver report. We analyzed differences based on gender, age, socioeconomic status (SS) and containment measure (and their interactions); their associations with symptomatology and positive affect of parents/caregivers; and the moderating effects of sociodemographic factors on these associations. Method: A total of 1205 caregivers responded to a survey regarding the mental health of children and adolescents under their care. They also completed a set of anxiety, depression, and affect measures about themselves. Results: A considerable proportion of parents/caregivers perceived changes in their children's and adolescents' mental health compared to before the pandemic. Increased levels of anxiety-depression, aggression-irritability, impulsivity-inattention, and dependence-withdrawal were reported, as well as alterations in sleeping and eating habits, and a reduction in positive affect. Differences were observed according to their age and containment measure. Finally, we found correlations between parents/caregivers' symptomatology and that reported about their children or adolescents. Gender, age and SS moderated some of these relationships. Conclusions: Continued monitoring of child and adolescent mental health is a fundamental necessity. We recommend the implementation of early intervention strategies to prevent the escalation of serious mental health problems, particularly in those groups that have been most adversely affected since the onset of the pandemic.

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Aging causes changes that affect functioning of cognitive processes such as cognitive flexibility (CF). Given it allows changing both behavior and thinking in dynamic contexts, it constitutes an essential trait of adaptive, goal-oriented behavior. Despite its importance, specific techniques to evaluate CF in older adults are lacking. The goal of this article is to describe and comparatively analyze the functioning of CF in a sample of 169 individuals representing three age groups-younger-age, middle-age and advanced-age adults-by obtaining evidence of internal and external validity. Using a correlational and cross-sectional research design, four studies were conducted in order to evaluate construct validity-fulfillment of experimental paradigm criteria and contrast between groups and tests with different methods. In addition to the Fingers Task, the study used the CAMBIOS Cognitive Flexibility Test, TAC's Conjunction Visual Search Task (which evaluates perceptual inhibition) and a verbal fluency task with changes. The results provide evidence of the functioning of CF in adulthood and advanced age, which has implications for neurocognitive clinical evaluation in these stages of life. Additionally, evidence was obtained in favor of the concurrent validity of the instruments used to measure CF, contributing to the solidity of future studies on this executive function.

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In daily life, when a bee approaches us while we are sitting in the garden, we must pay attention to that threatening stimulus and give an appropriate response. However, if this bee approaches us while riding a bike, we must inhibit that distractor to avoid an accident. In this case, avoiding the interference of an emotional stimuli and continuing with the task should be preferential. In general, perceptual inhibition is responsible for controlling and suppressing the environmental distractions that interrupt the course of the realization of a goal. In this study, 435 children performed a modified flanker task with entirely irrelevant emotional and neutral stimuli in order to assess perceptual inhibition in contexts with high and low emotional salience. The results showed that entirely irrelevant distractors affected performance, but that there were no significant differences according to whether these distractors were emotionally salient or neutral. These results constitute a first approach to the problem of emotional interference in children considering the multidimensional approach of inhibition.

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Working memory is a process of great relevance during childhood due to its role in diverse complex skills. Like the rest of executive functions, it is highly sensitive to environmental influences, so it is assumed that it could be modified through targeted interventions. A large number of working memory training studies in children aim to achieve transfer effects both on this process and on those with which it is related. Although some promising results have been found, the efficacy of working memory training cannot be affirmed; methodological quality of studies is one of the main reasons for this. Compliance with basic methodological criteria (inclusion of a control group that must preferably be active, random assignment of participants to groups) has a great impact on the internal validity of the studies. Furthermore, the need to control for the effects of motivational factors associated with the intervention is added and emphasized. This study reviews the fulfillment of these criteria in process-based working memory training literature in children, analyzing its impact on internal validity. Limitations of the field in relation to the lack of compliance with the proposed criteria are discussed and alternatives are suggested in order to improve the quality of future studies.

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Resumen La atención selectiva es la función cognitiva que orienta la atención hacia los objetos o estímulos que resultan relevantes evitando la distracción frente a aquellos que son irrelevantes. En general, la literatura indica que el desempeño de la atención selectiva mejora notablemente con la edad, sin embargo, las diferencias vinculadas a esta variable no se cumplen para todas las condiciones de cantidad de estímulos distractores ni para todos los grupos de edad. Asimismo, aún no se ha explorado la contribución del control inhibitorio y la velocidad de procesamiento a esta mejora progresiva. Por este motivo, y debido a la escasez de estudios en población infantil, se propuso analizar la contribución relativa de la velocidad de procesamiento y de la inhibición al desempeño en una tarea de atención selectiva y búsqueda visual en esta etapa evolutiva. Para ello, se administró una tarea de búsqueda de conjunciones y una tarea simple de velocidad de respuesta a 295 niños de 6 a 13 años de edad. Los resultados permitieron plantear dos conclusiones principales: por un lado, que la atención selectiva mejora consistentemente durante la niñez y, por otro lado, que no existe un mecanismo general y exclusivo capaz de explicar estas diferencias durante esta etapa vital. Así, tanto la velocidad de procesamiento como el control inhibitorio contribuyen al desarrollo de la atención selectiva y ambos mecanismos cognitivos actúan de manera complementaria más que excluyente.

Abstract Selective attention allows directs attention to relevant objects or stimuli, while avoiding distraction from those that are irrelevant. The literature indicates that performance in CVS tasks improves markedly with age. However, age-related differences are not met neither for every number of distractor conditions nor for all age groups. In addition, the contribution of inhibitory control and processing speed to this progressive improvement has not yet been explored. For this reason, and due to the scarcity of studies using CVS paradigm to evaluate selective attention in children, the present study aimed to analyze the relative contribution of processing speed and inhibition to performance during this evolutionary period in a selective attention and CVS task. To do this, a CVS and a simple response speed task were administered to 295 children aged 6-13 years old. Results offered two conclusions: first, selective attention improves during childhood; second, there is no general and exclusive mechanism capable of explaining these differences during this period. Thus, both processing speed and inhibitory control contribute to development of selective attention, and they seem to be more complementary mechanisms than excluding ones.

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Resumen Las habilidades académicas constituyen un componente específico del éxito escolar y numerosos factores influyen en su adquisición y consolidación. Uno de estos es la habilidad de regulación emocional de tolerancia al distrés, que se define por la capacidad de resistir esta dos emocionales negativos en pos de un objetivo. El propósito de este trabajo fue analizar la relación entre la tolerancia al distrés y las habilidades académicas de comprensión lectora y cálculo matemático en 107 niños de escolaridad primaria de 9 a 11 años de edad. Los resultados mostraron que la tolerancia al distrés resultó un predictor significativo de la comprensión lectora de textos expositivos y del cálculo matemático, no así de la comprensión lectora de textos narrativos. Es posible que la tolerancia al distrés resulte un factor relevante para el éxito académico en varios dominios.

Abstract Academic skills are a specific component of academic success, and many factors influence their acquisition and consolidation. One of these factors is the ability to emotionally regu late distress tolerance, as defined by the ability to withstand negative emotional states in pursuit of a goal. This paper undertook to analyse the relationship between distress tole rance and reading comprehension and mathematical computations in 107 primary school children aged 9 to 11. The results showed that distress tolerance was a significant predictor of reading comprehension of expository texts and mathematical computations, albeit not so for reading comprehension of narrative texts. Distress tolerance is likely to be a relevant factor for academic success in several domains.

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Los déficit de las funciones ejecutivas (FE) suelen estar presentes en el Trastorno por Déficit de Atención e Hiperactividad (TDAH). Distintos trabajos mostraron algunas falencias vinculadas a la medición de las FE, como la participación de otros procesos que no constituyen objeto de la evaluación. En el trabajo que se informa se analizaron las diferencias existentes en las FE de niños con y sin diagnóstico de TDAH y se buscó identificar y establecer aquellas variables con mayor poder discriminante para la probabilidad de pertenencia a ambos grupos. Se utilizaron las tareas de la batería denominada Tareas de Autorregulación Cognitiva (TAC), diseñadas ad-hoc para evaluar específica y relativamente en forma independiente cada FE. Se trabajó con una muestra de 49 niños escolarizados de 7 a 12 años de edad, de ambos géneros, divididos en dos grupos, uno clínico de 19 niños con diagnóstico de TDAH, con una media de edad igual a 9.84 años (DE = 1.83) y uno control de 30 niños sin diagnóstico de TDAH con una media de edad igual a 10.27 años (DE = .82), equiparados por género, edad, niveles socioeconómico y educacional. Los resultados mostraron que el análisis discriminante permitió clasificar correctamente al 98% de los participantes. Las tareas mejor discriminadas fueron la de Flexibilidad cognitiva y Control inhibitorio comportamental, con un 98.9% y 97.8%, respectivamente, de casos correctos. Esto muestra que la TAC constituye una batería con adecuada sensibilidad y especificidad para discriminar y detectar casos de TDAH con un elevado nivel de confiabilidad y porcentaje de correctos clasificados.

The executive functions (EF) multidimensional approaches state that EFs consist of a set of processes with relative autonomy and independence: working memory (WM), cognitive flexibility (CF), and inhibition. Regarding the inhibitory operation, three dimensions are distinguished, each with distinct operative features: perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral inhibition. Perceptual inhibition is the process that allows the focus on relevant environmental stimuli through the attenuation of the interference generated by other stimuli present in the context. Cognitive inhibition is involved in the decreased level of activation of the prepotent mental representations of intrusive and irrelevant to the achievement of current goals. Finally, behavioral inhibition handles suppress or cancel behaviors and strong, prepotent and un suitable behaviors. While this last type contributes to the inhibitory control of behavior, the other two processes (cognitive and perceptual inhibition) apply to cognition, as involved in regulating the perceptions and representations. Regarding executive operation in general, empirical evidence suggests that these dimensions are involved in such diverse fields as psychopathology, personality, emotion, attentional control and cognitive development. It has been found that deficits in EFs are usually present in the Attention Deficit Hyper activity Disorder (ADHD). The common practice of treating children with ADHD as an undifferentiated group of participants in behavioral and neuropsychological research may have adverse methodological consequences. Relying on group averaging in comparing the performance of ADHD and control groups may produce misleading results, as it conceals possible effects that may characterize some but not all ADHD participants. According to the previous assumptions, the objectives of this work were (1) analyzing the EF performance in children with or without diagnosed ADHD and (2) identifying and setting the variables with greater discriminant power between the normal and clinical groups. Battery tasks called Tareas de Autorregulación Cognitiva (TAC) ad-hoc and designed to assess EFs operation specifically and with relative independence with each other were used. The sample consisted of 49 school-attending children, aged 7-12 years, of both sexes, divided into two groups: (1) a clinical group of 19 children diagnosed with ADHD combined subtype (M age = 9.84 years, SD =1.83), and (2) a control group of 30 children without ADHD diagnosis (M age = 10.27 years, SD = .82), matched by gender, age, socioeconomic and educational level. By analyzing the results, significant differences were found between verbal and visuospatial WM, CF, behavioral and perceptual inhibition indices. Then, a discriminant analysis was made in order to use the index values with significant differences and make predictions about the probability of a subject to be a member of a certain criteria variable value (clinical or control group condition). Results show that discriminant analysis allows to correctly classifying 98% of the participants. The results indicated that the average RT of the mixed block (Cognitive Flexibility) and the Stop Signal RT (Behavioral Inhibition) are the indices with better sensitivity and specificity for detecting the presence of ADHD in this sample. Considering that the area under the curve indicates the probability to classify correctly a couple of healthy and ill individuals randomly selected, then it is possible to conclude that the values of Cognitive Flexibility and Behavioral Inhibitory control tasks had better discriminant power, as they correctly classified 98.9% and 97.8% of the total cases, respectively. This result shows that the TAC Battery presents adequate sensitivity and specificity to discriminate and detect ADHD with a high level of reliability and classification accuracy. Summarizing, we highlight the importance of having an assessment battery such as the totally computerized TAC, which allows the assessment of EFs independently, with an attractive design and straightforward administering and scoring procedures.

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Inhibition is one of the main executive functions, because of its fundamental role in cognitive and social development. Given the importance of reliable and computerized measurements to assessment inhibitory performance, this research intends to analyze the internal and external criteria of validity of a computerized conjunction search task, to evaluate the role of perceptual inhibition. A sample of 41 children (21 females and 20 males), aged between 6 and 11 years old (M = 8.49, SD = 1.47), intentionally selected from a private management school of Mar del Plata (Argentina), middle socio-economic level were assessed. The Conjunction Search Task from the TAC Battery, Coding and Symbol Search tasks from Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were used. Overall, results allow us to confirm that the perceptual inhibition task form TAC presents solid rates of internal and external validity that make a valid measurement instrument of this process.

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