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Characterizing Development - Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Children’s Cognition:

Understanding the development of cognition is an essential first step in developing school-based strategies to promote these skills. This basic science strand of research is a key component of my broader program of study, laying the foundation for understanding the key processes impacted by the school experience. In it, I address questions related to the measurement of EF and cognitive control and I explore the behavioral and neural correlates of cognitive control processes, which play an important role in children’s ability to self-regulate cognition and emotion, both of which are necessary in school. As a part of this effort, I have pioneered the use of EEG methods for data collection in schools. In addition I developed and validated a child-friendly EEG measure that my research team has used to examine cognitive control in developmental, educational, and clinical investigations.

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• Grammer, J. K., Carrasco, M., Gehring, W. J. & Morrison, F. J. (2014).  Age-related differences in error processing in young children. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 

• Grammer, J. K., Gehring, W. J., & Morrison, F. J. (2018). Associations between developmental changes in error‐related brain activity and executive functions in early childhood. Psychophysiology, 55(3), 10.1111/psyp.13040. 

• Isbell, E. & Grammer, J. G. (2022). ERP data quality in young children: Standardized measurement error of the ERN and Pe. Developmental Psychobiology. 64(4), e22245. doi: 10.1002/dev.22245

• Morrison, F. J. & Grammer, J. K.  (2016). Conceptual clutter and measurement mayhem:  A proposal for a cross disciplinary approach to conceptualizing and measuring executive function. In J. A. Griffin, L. S. Freund, & P. McArdle (Eds.), Executive function in preschool age children: Integrating measurement, neurodevelopment and translational research p. 327–348. D.C.: APA.

 

 

Studying Cognition in the Classroom – Cognitive Control and Emotion Regulation in School:  Although teachers observe the interactions between emotions, cognition, and resulting behavior in their students every day, our understanding of the relations between emotion regulation and cognitive regulation in school-aged children is still limited. Neuroscientific evidence drawn from clinical populations suggests that cognitive control is integrally related to affective processes hypothesized to support learning. I have argued that this work has direct implications for studying children’s cognitive control in school, and that it is not possible to fully understand the links between cognitive control and academic performance if we fail to account for the impact of emotions. To address this gap, I expanded my program of research to include the study of cognitive control in instances where emotion regulation is important in school: responsiveness to feedback, persistence, and motivation. This line of research links my basic scientific work with the real concerns of practitioners. As a part of this work I have examined factors within the environment (e.g., performance-based feedback, culture) and within-child characteristics (e.g., persistence, motivation, and anxiety) that contribute to the individual differences in children’s cognitive skills.

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• Torgrimson, S.J., Tan. P. Z.., & Grammer, J. K. (2021). Associations among response inhibition, motivational beliefs, and task persistence in early elementary school. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 208. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105141

• Rapp, A., Grammer, J. K., Tan, P.Z., Gehring, W., Miller, G.A., & Chavira, D. (2021) Collectivism is associated with enhanced neural response to errors occurring in a socially-salient context among diverse adolescents. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 1150-1159. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsab065

• Ahmed, S. F., Grammer, J. K., & Morrison, F.  (2021).  The development and validation of classroom-based executive function assessments in school-aged children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 208. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105131

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Relating the Classroom Context to Children’s Developing Cognitive and Academic Skills:  

Despite consistent evidence highlighting the importance of early school experiences for the development of children’s academic skills, significant questions remain about how to best characterize aspects of the elementary school environment that foster the development of children’s learning and academic achievement. Using a combination of longitudinal, experimental, and quasi-experimental approaches, through my research I have been able to demonstrate 1) the impact that school experience has broadly on children’s brain and behavioral development and 2) aspects of elementary school classroom instruction that relate to children’s strategic memory development and academically-relevant cognitive skills. More recently, combining direct observation of teachers’ classroom instruction with naturalistically-collected EEG data to directly examine the impact of classroom activities on student’s brain function. With these methods, we have examined the neural correlates of attention and EF while students are learning in the classroom and online, documenting the effects of instructional activities on student attention. I continue to pursue this line of inquiry, as evidenced in this project, by working to link aspects of teacher-led instruction to children’s brain and behavior related to EF and attentional skills.

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1. Grammer, J. K., Coffman, J. L., & Ornstein, P. A. (2013). The impact of teachers' memory relevant language on children's strategy use and knowledge. Child Development, 84, 1989-2002. PMCID: PMC4112095

2. Morrison, F. J., Kim, M. H., Connor, C. M., & Grammer, J. K. (2019). The causal impact of schooling on children’s development: Lessons for developmental science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(5), 441-449. doi: 10.1177/0963721419855661

3. Grammer, J. K. & Ahmed, S. F. (2023). Informing the Development of School-Based Strategies to Promote Children's Executive Function Skills: Considerations, Challenges, and Future Directions. Mind, Brain, and Education. doi: 10.1111/mbe.12368

4. Grammer, J. K., *Xu, K., Lenartowicz, A. (2021). Effects of context on the neural correlates of attention in a college classroom. npj Science of Learning, 6, 15. doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00094-8

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