Time’s Up! Involvement of Metamemory Knowledge, Executive Functions, and Time Monitoring in Children’s Prospective Memory Performance

This study examined time-based prospective memory (PM) in children and explored the possible involvement of metamemory knowledge and executive functions in the use of an appropriate time monitoring strategy depending on the ongoing task’s difficulty. Specifically, a sample of 72 typically developing children aged 4, 6, and 9 years old were given an original PM paradigm composed of both an ongoing procedural activity and a PM task. Half of the participants (expert group) were trained in the ongoing activity before the prospective test. As expected, results show that time monitoring had a positive effect on children’s PM performance. Furthermore, mediation analyses reveal that strategic time monitoring was predicted by metamemory knowledge in the expert group but only by executive functions in the novice group. Overall, these findings provide interesting avenues to explain how metamemory knowledge, strategy use, and executive functions interact to improve PM performance during childhood

Is the combination of behavioral activation and attention training technique effective to reduce depressive symptomatology? A multiple case study

BackgroundThis study tested whether the combination of BATD and Attention Training Technique (ATT) is effective to reduce depressive symptomatology and investigate the mechanisms of action underlying the effectiveness of treatment with a multiple N-of-1 trials.MethodsNine adults with depressive symptoms were randomly included in three different combinations of BATD and ATT, concurrent in Condition 1 and sequential in Conditions 2 and 3 (ATT followed by BATD and BATD followed by ATT, respectively). The sequential components allow investigating the specific changes that occur during the two distinct treatment phases. Multiple self-report and pre–post-assessments were conducted on generic mental health measures (depressive symptoms, life functioning, mood, and well-being) and intervention-specific measures (behavioral activation, behavioral avoidance, self-focused attention, cognitive control and rumination), with two-week and three-month follow-up assessments. We also measured treatment adherence with treatment attendance, homework compliance and a clinical interview.ResultsParticipants’ attendance, homework compliance and satisfaction were acceptable in the three conditions, with higher adherence in Condition 1 and Condition 3. Eight participants out of nine reported a reduction in depressive symptomatology and five an improvement in well-being. Most of their progress was maintained 2 weeks after the intervention but not 3 months later. Conditions 1 and 2 seemed to be associated with a higher response to generic mental health measures in comparison with Condition 3. The three conditions were not associated with consistent changes in intervention-specific measures, except for rumination with five participants out of nine reporting an improvement in rumination immediately after the intervention and eight participants 2 weeks after the intervention. The concurrent format was associated with a better improvement in rumination immediately after the intervention. No specific changes of self-focused attention and rumination characterized ATT, and no specific changes of behavioral activation, behavioral avoidance and rumination characterized BATD.ConclusionOur three interventions were judged acceptable and showed positive short-term benefit for generic mental health measures and rumination maintained 2 weeks later, but not 3 months later. Results suggest that five sessions of concurrent treatment could be a better option than sequential formats. However, our data did not support the specificity of ATT and BATD treatments.Clinical Trial Registration: This trial was previously registered with the ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04595539 registration number and the title “Does Attention Training Technique Enhance the Effectiveness of Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression: A Multiple Baseline Study.

Reminiscing or playing? The power of early parent-child metacognitive interactions across contexts

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When the past serves the future: Exploration of episodic future thinking among preschoolers

peer reviewedEpisodic future thinking (EFT) – i.e., the ability to imagine specific experiences that might occur in one’s personal future – is a crucial skill, essential for many cognitive (e.g., planning) and socio-emotional (e.g., emotion regulation) abilities (Conway et al., 2019). Its development begins during the preschool years, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying this process (Busby & Suddendorf, 2005). A common assumption is that EFT relies on the memory of personal experiences (Schacter et al., 2017). In this perspective, our study explored whether preschoolers’ EFT is related to (a) their memory performance, and (b) the way their parents engage them in conversations about past events, referred to as parental reminiscing style. To this end, 50 French-speaking parent-child dyads were recruited. Children were asked to perform an EFT task in which they had to describe three activities they would do the next day. They also completed several memory tasks: two tasks assessing the accuracy of their memories about previously experienced standardized events and one laboratory memory task evaluating their ability to memorize new information (the House Test, Picard et al., 2012). To determine parental reminiscing style, we analyzed parent-child discussions of a prior standardized event (a museum visit). The results first revealed that children’s EFT was positively associated with their performance on the encoding and recognition phases of the laboratory memory task. Then, we showed that some specific components of parental reminiscing style (i.e., repetitions and metamemory talk) were positively associated with children’s EFT. Importantly, these findings have allowed us to hypothesize about the cognitive processes potentially involved in the early acquisition of EFT (e.g., binding processes) and, more broadly, converge with literature that states the role of parental reminiscing as a key determinant of early cognitive development (Fivush, 2019)

Metacognition and language: What teacher's metacognitive talk to support young children's language skills in pre-school settings?

Les habiletés langagières des enfants sont essentielles pour leur succès académique (Lyster et al., 2021) et peuvent être stimulées par la qualité des interactions avec leur enseignant (Barnes & Dickinson, 2018 ; El Kouba et al., 2022). Deux domaines de recherche coexistent concernant l'amélioration des interactions enseignant-enfant : d’une part, les stratégies langagières spécifiques et, d’autre part, les stratégies métacognitives globales, dont l'effet sur le développement langagier reste à étudier. Ce projet doctoral intègre ces deux champs de recherche en étudiant les pratiques métacognitives des enseignants de maternelle et leur influence sur le développement langagier des enfants et se décline en trois études. La première est une étude de portée visant à identifier les données concernant le soutien langagier et métacognitif chez les jeunes enfants en vue de caractériser les pratiques enseignantes en classe maternelle, utilisant la méthode PCC et des bases de données telles que Eric, PsycInfo, Scopus (Peters et al., 2022). La deuxième étude évalue l'impact du style métacognitif des enseignants sur les performances langagières d’enfants d'âge préscolaire. Elle implique 24 enseignants et 144 enfants et des observations en classe. Les mesures comprennent des interactions enseignant-enfant et des performances langagières dans différents domaines du langage oral. Enfin, la troisième consiste en une étude de cas multiple pour former 6 enseignants à être plus métacognitifs dans leur soutien au langage des enfants. Elle comprend un programme de développement professionnel (Biel et al., 2020) et des analyses pour évaluer les changements dans leur style métacognitif avant et après l’intervention. Des mesures langagières chez 36 enfants seront également effectuées.Children's language skills are essential for their academic success (Lyster et al., 2021) and can be stimulated by the quality of interactions with their teacher (Barnes & Dickinson, 2018; El Kouba et al., 2022). Two areas of research coexist concerning the improvement of teacher-child interactions: on the one hand, specific language strategies and, on the other, metacognitive strategies,. However, the metacognitive characteristics that positively influence language development are not yet known. This doctoral project integrates these two fields of research by studying the metacognitive talk of preschool teachers and their influence on children's language development, and is divided into three studies. The first is a scoping review aimed at identifying data concerning language and metacognitive support in young children with a view to characterising teaching practices in preschool settings, using the PCC method and databases such as Eric, PsycInfo and Scopus (Peters et al., 2022). The second study assesses the impact of teachers' metacognitive talk on the language performance of pre-school children. It involves 24 teachers and 144 children and classroom observations. Measures include teacher-child interactions and language performance in different areas of oral language. Finally, the third consists of a multiple case study to train 6 teachers to be more metacognitive in their support of children's language. It includes a professional development programme (Biel et al., 2020) and analyses to assess changes in teacher's metacognitive talk before and after the intervention. Language measures will also be carried out on 36 children

Impaired explicit self-awareness but preserved behavioral regulation in patients with Alzheimer Disease

Objectives: Impairments of metacognitive skills represent a critical symptom in Alzheimer Disease (AD) because it frequently results in a lack of self-awareness. However, recent findings suggest that, despite an inability to explicitly estimate their own cognitive functioning, patients might demonstrate some implicit recognition of difficulties. In this study, we tested whether a behavioral dissociation between explicit and implicit measures of metacognition can be found in both healthy older controls (n = 20) and AD patients (n = 20). Methods: Our two groups of participants (AD vs. Controls) were asked to complete a forced-choice perceptual identification test and to explicitly rate their confidence in each decision (i.e., explicit measure of metacognition). Moreover, they also had the opportunity to ask for a cue to help them decide if their response was correct (i.e., implicit measure of metacognition). Results: Data revealed that all participants asked for a cue more often after an incorrect response than after a correct response in the forced-choice identification test, indicating a good ability to implicitly introspect on the results of their cognitive operations. On the contrary, only healthy participants displayed metacognitive sensitivity when making explicit confidence judgments. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that implicit metacognition may be less affected than explicit metacognition in Alzheimer’s disease

Training arithmetical skills when finger counting and working memory cannot be used: A single case study in a child with cerebral palsy.

peer reviewedChildren with cerebral palsy (CP) are at greater risk of mathematical learning disabilities due to associated motor and cognitive limitations. However, there is currently little evidence on how to support the development of arithmetic skills within such a specific profile. The aim of this single-case study was to assess the effectiveness of a neuropsychological rehabilitation of arithmetic skills in NG, a 9-year-old boy with CP who experienced math learning disability and cumulated motor and short-term memory impairments. This issue was explored combining multiple-baseline and changing-criterion designs. The intervention consisted of training NG to solve complex additions applying calculation procedures with a tailor-made computation tool. Based on NG’s strengths, in accordance with evidence-based practice in psychology, the intervention was the result of a co-construction process involving N, his NG’s parents and professionals (therapist and researchers). Results were analysed by combining graph visual inspections with non-parametric statistics for single-case designs (NAP-scores). Analyses showed a specific improvement in NG’s ability to solve complex additions, which maintained for up to three weeks after intervention. The training effect did not generalize to his ability to perform mental additions, and to process the symbolic magnitude

Discuter du passé : une manière de stimuler le développement de la mémoire épisodique d'enfants d'âge préscolaire

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