Improving Executive Functioning Skills in Children with Autism through Cognitive Training Program

AbstractAs the world’s population is aging rapidly, cognitive training is an extensively used approach to attempt improvement of age-related cognitive functioning. With increasing numbers of older adults required to remain in the workforce, it is important to be able to reliably predict future functional decline, as well as the individual advantages of cognitive training. Given the correlation between age-related decline and striatal dopaminergic function, we investigated whether eye blink rate (EBR), a non-invasive, indirect indicator of dopaminergic activity, could predict executive functioning (response inhibition, switching and working memory updating) as well as trainability of executive functioning in older adults. EBR was collected before and after a cognitive flexibility training, cognitive training without flexibility, or a mock training. EBR predicted working memory updating performance on two measures of updating, as well as trainability of working memory updating, whereas performance and trainability in inhibition and switching tasks could not be predicted by EBR. Our findings tentatively indicate that EBR permits prediction of working memory performance in older adults. To fully interpret the relationship with executive functioning, we suggest future research should assess both EBR and dopamine receptor availability among seniors.

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Effects of multi-domain cognitive training on working memory retrieval in older adults: behavioral and ERP evidence from a Chinese community study

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-020-79784-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Xiangfei Hong ◽

You Chen ◽

Jijun Wang ◽

Yuan Shen ◽

Qingwei Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Training Program ◽

Cognitive Training ◽

Local Community ◽

Training Group ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Control Group ◽

Baseline Session

AbstractWorking memory (WM) is a fundamental cognitive function that typically declines with age. Previous studies have shown that targeted WM training has the potential to improve WM performance in older adults. In the present study, we investigated whether a multi-domain cognitive training program that was not designed to specifically target WM could improve the behavioral performance and affect the neural activity during WM retrieval in healthy older adults. We assigned healthy older participants (70–78 years old) from a local community into a training group who completed a 3-month multi-domain cognitive training and a control group who only attended health education lectures during the same period. Behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) data were recorded from participants while performing an untrained delayed match or non-match to category task and a control task at a pre-training baseline session and a post-training follow-up session. Behaviorally, we found that participants in the training group showed a trend toward greater WM performance gains than participants in the control group. Event-related potential (ERP) results suggest that the task-related modulation of P3 during WM retrieval was significantly enhanced at the follow-up session compared with the baseline session, and importantly, this enhancement of P3 modulation was only significant in the training group. Furthermore, no training-related effects were observed for the P2 or N2 component during WM retrieval. These results suggest that the multi-domain cognitive training program that was not designed to specifically target WM is a promising approach to improve WM performance in older adults, and that training-related gains in performance are likely mediated by an enhanced modulation of P3 which might reflect the process of WM updating.

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Assessing executive functioning skills in the preschool population using the preschool test of discrimination learning Kable, J. A., Coles, C. D., & Johnson, A.

Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology ◽

10.1016/s0887-6177(99)90466-3 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 80-81

Keyword(s):

Executive Functioning ◽

Discrimination Learning ◽

Executive Functioning Skills

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Computerized Cognitive Training with Learning Disabled Students: A Pilot Study

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.1992.71.3f.1347 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 71 (3_suppl) ◽

pp. 1347-1356 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

F. Talbot ◽

M. Pépin ◽

M. Loranger

Keyword(s):

Pilot Study ◽

Training Program ◽

Cognitive Training ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Mental Arithmetic ◽

Learning Disabled ◽

Skills Development ◽

Control Group ◽

Disabled Students ◽

Computerized Cognitive Training

The effects of practicing computerized exercises in class by 59 learning disabled students who received an 8-hr. training program, 30 min. per week, were evaluated. Six exercises designed to facilitate basic cognitive skills development were used. Twelve subjects were assigned to a control group without any form of intervention. Covariance analysis (pretest scores used as covariates) showed a significant effect of training on mental arithmetic. These results suggest that practicing a computerized exercise of mental arithmetic can facilitate the automatization of basic arithmetic skills (addition, subtraction, and multiplication). The nature, progress, and evaluation of such types of intervention are discussed.

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