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Lecture notes and knowledge clip notes for School Psychology
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A summary of all knowledge clips and lecture notes for the specialisation course School Psychology.
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ContentsLecture 1 – Introduction and Development of Executive Functions 2
Knowledge clips 2
Lecture notes 4
Lecture 2 – Working memory development 5
Knowledge clips 5
Lecture notes 5
Lecture 3 – Causal reasoning and Creative thinking 7
Knowledge clips 7
Lecture 4 – Development of Reading and Math 10
Lecture notes 10
Lecture 5 – Conceptual development 13
Lecture notes 13
Lecture 6 – Intelligence and Dynamic Testing 15
Knowledge clips 15
Lecture notes 17
Flynn (1987) – Massive IQ gains in 14 nations: What IQ tests really measure 18
Resing et al. (2020) – Assessing potential for learning in school children 18
Roth et al. (2015) – Intelligence and school grades: A meta-analysis 20
Lecture 7 – Principles of Learning and Motivation of Learning 21
Knowledge clips 21
Lecture notes 23
1
,School Psychology lecture 1 – Introduction and Development of Executive Functions
Lecture 1 – Introduction and Development of Executive Functions
Knowledge clips
Executive functions
Executive functions can be compared to an air traffic control system, as they involve concentration,
juggling multiple demands, adapting to changing circumstances, working with others, dealing with
setbacks, and inhibiting immediate rewards, which are all crucial for learning at school. A low
executive functioning can lead to difficulties later in life, including worse school performance,
difficulty keeping jobs, lower income, difficulties maintaining relationships, and increased risk for
mental health problems. Early identification and intervention can reduce poor outcomes.
Executive functioning is an umbrella term for various cognitive processes that give rise to goal-
directed behaviour. This is especially important in novel and demanding situations, for flexible
adjustment, and for adaptive behaviour and creativity. Executive function is defined as the
monitoring and self-regulation of thought and action and the ability to plan your behaviour and to
inhibit inappropriate responses. It was previously thought that executive functioning consists of one
process, cognitive control. Now it is seen as consisting of multiple components, with three core
components (which do correlate with each other slightly):
Working memory: The ability to hold information in the mind (maintenance) and mentally
work with it (manipulation).
Inhibitory control (inhibition): The ability to suppress interfering thought and actions that
are not relevant to the task at hand.
Cognitive flexibility (mental flexibility, shifting, or switching): The ability to change one’s
perspective or approach to a problem, flexibly adjusting to new demands, rules, or priorities.
This requires both working memory and inhibitory control.
These serve as building blocks for higher-order cognitive processes such as planning, reasoning,
problem solving, and performance monitoring.
Development of executive functioning
The prefrontal cortex (PC) plays a really important role in
executive functioning. The dorsolateral PC is important for
working memory, the medial PC for cognitive flexibility, and
the orbital PC for inhibition.
Damage to these brain regions can allow inference of their functions. MRI allows for imaging healthy
brains of children and adolescents. An MRI can take pictures of the brain structure and the brain
function (fMRI). Task-related fMRI’s are taken while children perform a task through a mirror. The
amount of blood flow to specific areas in the brain indicates how brain activity changes over time.
The subtraction method compares brain activity of two conditions. A study using fMRI found that
both performance on the task and brain activity were predictors of reading fluency and mathematics
of children 2 years later.
Adolescents are impulsive, do not think about long-term consequences, and have difficulty planning.
It seems they have an executive function deficit. The PFC is already more developed than in children,
but isn’t fully developed yet. The amount of grey matter decreases after childhood (pruning). The
DLPFC is one of the last areas to mature. The brain regions involved in emotional processing (limbic
regions) are more developed than the regions involved in cognitive processes. This imbalance in
adolescence seems like poor executive function. They show a preference for immediate reward.
2
, School Psychology lecture 1 – Introduction and Development of Executive Functions
Next to age differences, there are also differences between individuals in the same age-group.
Relatively poor performance on the Marshmallow test at age 4 (low delayers) was associated with
more errors on the hot Go/NoGo task. This indicate that the ability to supress a behavioural response
to happy faces was particularly difficult for the low delayers.
Measures of executive functioning
Measures are often used in research setting to gain insight into typical development of executive
functioning. Research has shown that inhibitory control develops mostly during childhood and is fully
developed in adolescence. Cognitive flexibility and working memory gradually develop during
adolescence up to adulthood. Next to that, measures can also be used in clinical or educational
settings to identify clinical groups such as ADHD, learning disabilities, and depressions.
Simple executive functioning (measure only one of the core components):
Go/NoGo task (inhibition): Measures the ability to inhibit a prepotent response. Participants
should press a button when they see the Go signal as fast as possible. Task difficulty can be
increased by increasing the number of Go trials before a NoGo trials. A child-friendly Go/NoGo
task might use Pokémon and use one character for NoGo. Children perform similar on Go trials,
but make more errors on NoGo trials than adults. With more Go trials before NoGo, they make
more mistakes. Children with ADHD struggle even with NoGo1.
Complex executive functioning (measure multiple core components):
Tower of London task (Planning and spatial problem solving): Move pieces from starting position
to goal position. The fewer moves needed, the better the task performance. The difficulty
increases with the number of moves needed to get to the goal position. Children tend to make
more moves. The time before the first move is expected to be used to plan your moves. Adults
take more time planning their moves and adjust this to the problem difficulty. Compared to
adolescents, adults show better cognitive flexibility
Stroop task and Day and Night task (automatic response inhibition): Name the colour of the font
of a word, while the word itself is the name of another colour. Children haven’t automated the
reading response yet, so perform better on the Stroop task. Children of 8 years old struggle the
most with the Stroop task. The Day and Night task is a children’s version of the Stroop task.
Children have to say day when they see the moon and night when the see the sun. Performance
on this task improves when they take more time and between the ages of 3 to 7 years old.
Delay discounting and delayed gratification task (Self-regulation and inhibition): The
Marshmallow task indicates the longer the child waits, the better the child is at self-regulation. In
adults, the delay discounting task asks them whether they would prefer 5 euros now or 10 euros
in a week. The magnitude of the reward and length of the delay contribute to the choice.
Dimensional Change Card Sorting task and Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (Cognitive flexibility,
switching, shifting): In the DCCS, cards should be sorted by one dimension (colour or shape) and
then according to another dimension. This measures the ability to switch between different
sorting rules. 3-year-old do not shift after a rule change, called perseveration. They do know the
new rule, but cannot shift their behaviour, which is similar to patients with frontal brain damage.
4-year-olds can perform this task successfully. The WCST is a more difficult version whereby there
are no explicit instructions about the rules, which should be inferred based on feedback and no
instructions are given when the rule changes. This is called performance monitoring.
The BRIEF (Behavioural Rating Inventory of Executive Function) is a screening of executive
functioning offered in clinical practice or school settings to assess 5-18 year olds. It consists of a
teacher and/or parent report and a self-report for 11-18 year olds.
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