Supporting cognitive and academic development in children at risk: Metacognitive executive function training in children from low socioeconomic backgrounds

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Executive function (EF), the ability to regulate thoughts and actions, develops rapidly during childhood, supporting increasingly complex and adaptive behaviors. Emerging EF promotes greater autonomy and life success. Lower EF in children raised in low socioeconomic environments is a major risk factor for developmental delay, academic failure, and criminality. Extant training interventions, which have focused on basic EF processes and task-specific strategies, have yielded promising EF gains but only mixed and inconsistent transfer to cognitive and academic abilities. We propose to move beyond these limitations by innovatively targeting meta-cognitive reflection on and coordination of basic EF processes (meta-EF). Meta-EF training encourages not only more but also, and foremost, better and more adaptive EF engagement. We investigate basic-EF and meta-EF training programs in children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, with an emphasis on transfer to academic abilities. Children are recruited in three countries (Germany, UK, Japan) to ensure greater generalizability. We focus on two age groups (4-6 vs. 8-10 years) to examine whether EF training is most effective and economically strategic earlier in development. Building on our complementary expertise in EF development and training, this work will generate concrete educational instruments and contribute to acting against ever-increasing socioeconomic disparities by improving children's opportunities for educational equality.