Child Dev. 2026 Aug 12:aacag147. doi: 10.1093/chidev/aacag147. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Through statistical learning (SL), children implicitly extract repeated patterns in their environment. The developmental trajectory of how previously learned statistical information impacts children’s subsequent learning is poorly understood. Furthermore, how SL contributes to other developmental processes, like executive function, has received surprisingly little attention. In an accelerated longitudinal design, we assessed 187 5- to 12-year-olds’ (42.8% = female, 84.6% = White) SL and executive function capacities over 16 months. Cue-based SL and retention of nonadjacent probabilistic sequences were age-invariant. However, while all age groups showed an increased sensitivity to deterministic sequences with each successive time point, 5- to 6-year-olds demonstrated a greater longitudinal increase in sensitivity than older children. This finding suggests enhanced abilities to apply previously learned deterministic sequences to novel scenarios. Regarding SL-executive function links, two latent change score models provided limited evidence for SL-executive function coupling across the time points. While further work is needed to explore SL-executive function links across other modalities and in younger populations, our results suggest that early visual SL capacities may not be a primary driver of executive function change during middle childhood.
PMID:42584404 | DOI:10.1093/chidev/aacag147
