Promoting Executive Function Skills in Preschoolers Using a Play-Based Program.

In recent years, play has been shown to be a powerful means to enhance learning and brain development. It is also known that through play children enhance their executive function (EF) skills. Furthermore, well-developed EF in preschoolers has been shown to be an important predictor for later academic and life success.

Using a Common Form for Consistent Collection and Reporting of FASD Data from Across Canada: A Feasibility Study.

Background: This study was undertaken to determine the feasibility of collecting information on individuals newly diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in multi-disciplinary diagnostic programs across Canada.

Objective: To determine the frequencies of specific diagnoses within the spectrum, the frequencies and patterns of specific functional deficits, and the range of recommendations made for intervention and management for children and adults.

Methods: All qualifying clinics in Canada were invited to join this project and complete questionnaires on the patients that were seen during the research period.

Factors influencing frontal cortex development and recovery from early frontal injury.

Background: Neocortical development represents more than a simple unfolding of a genetic blueprint but rather represents a complex dance of genetic and environmental events that interact to adapt the brain to fit a particular environmental context. Although most cortical regions are sensitive to a wide range of experiential factors during development and later in life, the prefrontal cortex appears to be unusually sensitive to perinatal experiences and relatively immune to many adulthood experiences relative to other neocortical regions.

Methods And Results: One way to examine experience-dependent prefrontal development is to conduct studies in which experiential perturbations are related neuronal morphology.