Covid lockdowns slowed the growth of focus and self-control skills in young children, especially those who started school ...

Executive function—top-down processes by which the human mind controls behavior, regulating thoughts and actions—have long been studied using a standard set of tools, with these assessments being ...

Psychology Today's online self-tests are intended for informational purposes only and are not diagnostic tools. Psychology Today does not capture or store personally identifiable information, and your ...

Researchers from Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology found that educated children perform better on psychological tests measuring executive function abilities, challenging the accuracy ...

Principal Ian Knox’s thoughtful opinion essay, “Kindergartners Are Struggling With Self-Regulation. How Principals Can Respond ” (July 8, 2025), centers on steps school leaders can take to respond ...

Going to school helps children learn how to read and solve math problems, but it also appears to upgrade the fundamental operating system of their brains. A new analysis suggests that the structured ...

This post is part one of a series. Attention is a multifaceted process that manages the mental controls needed for school or work. Filtering incoming information to determine its importance (saliency) ...