The life-span perspective.

The Life-Span Perspective
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Article 1
Summary
In the study by Buttelmann & Karbach (2017), the researchers focus on cognitive flexibility among older adults. Cognitive flexibility develops over time from childhood and increases during adolescence. There is the ability to switch between tasks, perform execution functions (EFs), and manage multiple tasks. There are greater interests and more researches on how to improve cognitive flexibility from childhood to enhance development. Thus, the researchers review past studies and evidence on the interventions to improve cognitive flexibility and training to achieve positive effects. Buttelmann & Karbach (2017) proposed metacognitive training to improve cognitive flexibility.
Plasticity, where there is agility and flexibility, can be learned and is high during childhood when children develop and the environment influences their development milestones. The research on the plasticity of cognitive flexibility provides insight into how people adjust to new tasks and develop problem-solving techniques. Cognitive flexibility is essential for cognitive and everyday performance since it facilitates functioning, but there is a cognitive decline among older adults. Declining cognitive abilities is also a concern as they can influence an individual's perception of their well-being. Cognitive flexibility training is helpful to improve executive functioning in early and middle childhood, and it also improves into young adulthood.
Analysis and evaluation
Research on the plasticity of cognitive flexibility in early and middle childhood provides insights into how cognitive flexibility changes after training and changes in metacognitive ability from an early stage. The research highlights that the parietal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and the striatum are some of the brain areas that affect children's development and their ability to deal with complex problems. The researchers singled out working memory (WM) as one of the main components of executive functions (EFs) that develop into early adulthood. Based on the review, the researchers highlighted that training was shown to improve cognitive flexibility among children significantly.
Article 2
Summary
Cognitive development continues during adolescence to early adulthood, including their reasoning skills, but early cognitive impairment affects cognitive functioning later. In the research by Dickson et al. (2018), the researchers focused on the trajectories of adolescent cognitive functions among youth at-risk for schizophrenia. The study focused on cognitive development for those aged 9 to 16 years, comparing the developmental antecedents of schizophrenia (ASz) and schizoaffective disorder (FHx) with the participants who were well developing or the typically developing peers (TD). When comparing the development paths of the participants, they had cognitive deficits for the ASz and FHx compared to the well-developing study participants. The researchers considered different factors to evaluate the development milestones such as working memory, verbal memory, spelling, word reading, switching executive functions, and observations (Dickson et al., 2018).
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