Task-switching ability matures earlier than task maintenance and selection abilities in childhood¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2022: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Children reach adult levels of switching ability by age 11, while task maintenance abilities only mature at age 15. → Buttelmann F and Karbach J 2017 q2 i? In 5- to 6- and 9-year-olds, age-related improvement appears in maintaining and selecting task sets but not in switching between tasks. → Buttelmann F and Karbach J 2017 (2)

Evidence¶

Buttelmann F and Karbach J 2017¶

Buttelmann F and Karbach J (2017). Development and Plasticity of Cognitive Flexibility in Early and Middle Childhood. Front. Psychol. 8:1040. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01040

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports, citing Huizinga and van der Molen (2007), a developmental study of set-switching and set-maintenance in which "children reached adult levels of switching abilities by the age of 11 years"; no effect size is printed.

"children reached adult levels of switching abilities by the age of 11 years, while task maintenance abilities only matured at the age of 15 years"

Buttelmann F and Karbach J 2017 (2)¶

Buttelmann F and Karbach J (2017). Development and Plasticity of Cognitive Flexibility in Early and Middle Childhood. Front. Psychol. 8:1040. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01040

q2 · i? · associational · r?

The review reports, citing Karbach and Kray (2007), a cued task-switching study with 5- to 6-year-olds and 9-year-olds categorizing fruits/animals and color/gray stimuli; improvement was in maintenance and selection, not switching.

"Results showed an age-related improvement in the ability to maintain and select tasks, but not in the ability to switch between tasks."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Cognitive flexibility develops protractedly: sharp increase between 7 and 9 years, largely mature by age 10, peaking between 21 and 30 — related
• Earlier studies suggested mature active-learning patterns emerge only in late childhood, but the article attributes this to paradigm limitations — related
• Children's ability to shield attention against distraction develops until the second decade of life alongside prefrontal cortex maturation — related