The ability to regulate thoughts and actions in the service of goals is key to human adaptability and success. These executive function skills develop rapidly in childhood, are linked to many positive outcomes, and are widely viewed as a malleable target for intervention. However, there are substantial gaps in our understanding of how experience fosters the development of executive function skills, and hence the success of interventions designed to improve these skills has been limited.
In this Review, we examine how executive function is defined and measured and synthesize evidence on how experience fosters executive function skills. We focus on experiential factors that have received sustained attention in the field: socioeconomic status, the home environment and parenting, and schooling. Although positive associations between these experiential factors and executive function skills (as measured by commonly used assessments) are relatively consistent, the associations are often context-dependent and causally ambiguous.
We point out limitations in how the quality of environments and experiences are conceptualized across contexts and in how executive function skills are measured. We conclude by outlining four key directions for future work to improve these aspects of research and to clarify how experience shapes and strengthens executive function skills across contexts. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Diamond, A.
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