Zelazo – developmental outcomes

Executive function is emerging as a very important determinant of key developmental outcomes. Including, for example, academic performance in high school. So executive function measured during the preschool period predicts children’s SAT scores in high school. And it predicts other important developmental outcomes. It’s a good predictor, for example, of substance abuse problems, and criminal convictions, and so forth, much later in life. 

And so there’s been an awful lot of research in recent years, aimed at discovering ways to promote the healthy development of executive function. And increasingly, people, I think, are coming to realize that it is indeed something that is quite malleable, and can be trained. It’s a skill like other skills. And our research has emphasized the extent to which the key underlying skill is the ability to step back and reflect upon one’s own representations. 

Not to just act impulsively, or immediately in response to a situation, but instead, to stop, and think, and consider the current context, and consider the long term outcomes of different potential behaviour, behaviours.