The role of collaboration in the cognitive development of young children: a systematic review

Abstract Objectives To inform the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020–2025, the USDA and HHS identified important public health questions to be examined by the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The Committee conducted a systematic review with support from USDA's Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review (NESR) team to answer the question: What is the relationship between seafood consumption during pregnancy and lactation and neurocognitive development in the child? Methods The Committee developed a protocol that described how they would use NESR's systematic review methodology to examine evidence related to seafood intake during pregnancy and lactation and child neurocognitive development. NESR librarians conducted a literature search (2000–2019) and NESR analysts dual-screened the results using pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. NESR analysts extracted data and assessed risk of bias of included studies. The Committee synthesized the evidence, developed conclusion statements, and graded the strength of evidence underlying the conclusion statements. Results Twenty-six articles (from 18 prospective cohort studies [PCS]) met inclusion criteria; all assessed prenatal seafood intake and none assessed seafood intake during lactation. Evidence from 15 PCS suggests that prenatal seafood intake has beneficial associations with cognitive development, particularly in young children. Evidence from 12 PCS suggests that there may be a beneficial association between prenatal seafood intake and language/communication development. Less consistent evidence and/or scant to no evidence was available for movement/physical or social-emotional/behavioral development, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, academic performance, anxiety, and depression. Conclusions Moderate evidence indicates that seafood intake during pregnancy is associated favorably with measures of cognitive development in young children. Limited evidence suggests that seafood intake during pregnancy may be associated favorably with measures of language and communication development in the child. Insufficient or no evidence was available for all other relationships assessed. Funding Sources USDA, Food and Nutrition Service, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Alexandria, VA.

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What Research Tells Us: Single Texts

How We Read Now ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190084097.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 65-93

Author(s):

Naomi S. Baron

Keyword(s):

Social Interaction ◽

Cognitive Development ◽

Young Children ◽

Experimental Results ◽

School Age ◽

User Perception ◽

Text Display ◽

Digital Books

Chapter 4 delves into research comparing reading single printed texts versus digital versions. The beginning section considers what we know about using digital books with young children for different purposes: social interaction, linguistic or cognitive development, or engagement. Most of the chapter focuses on research with school-age readers. The discussion is organized around four issues. First, what kind of measures were used? Variables include user perception studies versus experiments, type of experimental questions, and speed. Second, does the length or genre of the text affect results? Third, what is the role of technology, including digital paging versus scrolling, along with adaptive text display? And fourth, how much are experimental results explained by the mindset (metacognition) we bring to reading in print versus digitally? Among the considerations are students’ ability to correctly predict success when reading in the two media (calibration) and motivation for reading.

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The role of pre‐school quality in promoting resilience in the cognitive development of young children

Oxford Review of Education ◽

10.1080/03054980902934613 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 331-352 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

James Hall ◽

Kathy Sylva ◽

Edward Melhuish ◽

Pam Sammons ◽

Iram Siraj‐Blatchford ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Development ◽

Young Children ◽

School Quality

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The role of inhibition in moving beyond perceptually focused noun extensions

First Language ◽

10.1177/0142723717737195 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 95-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Simon Snape ◽

Andrea Krott

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Cognitive Development ◽

Young Children ◽

Executive Control ◽

Potential Role ◽

Control Task ◽

Perceptual Features ◽

Object Categories ◽

Inhibition Ability

When young children interpret novel nouns, they tend to be very much affected by the perceptual features of the referent objects, especially shape. This article investigates whether children might inhibit a prepotent tendency to base novel nouns on the shape of referent objects in order to base them on conceptual features (i.e. taxonomic object categories). The study tested 3- to 5-year old children on a noun extension task, alongside a test of their inhibition and more general executive control ability. Noun extensions were related to inhibition ability, independent of age. Noun extensions were not related to individual differences in the general executive control task. This suggests a potential role for inhibition in extension which is independent of other aspects of cognitive development.

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