Cross-domain development of early academic and cognitive skills

Abstract

This opening paper presents the background to a Special Issue devoted to cross-domain development of academic and cognitive skills in young children (birth to 8). A growing body of research over the last decade has indicated that academic and cognitive skills develop in tandem across the early years. The 22 articles included in this Special Issue, though generally centered on the core domains of school readiness (literacy, mathematics, and self-regulation), address key issues in how these domains develop together and are potentially affected by other factors and domains such as underlying cognitive processes, motivation, and motor skills. The articles represent both short-term and long-term longitudinal studies as well as experimental methods of understanding the links between domains. Critically, within this set of articles, some of these connections have been addressed in international populations as well as language minority groups. In this introduction, we provide an overview of the Special Issue as well as next directions inspired by the findings from these articles.