Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Cognitive control—the ability to execute goal-relevant responses in the presence of competing goal-irrelevant response alternatives—predicts academic achievement, delinquency, and occupational success. Assessing children's cognitive control is challenging due to the tedious nature of cognitive assessments and children’s low attention spans. This study examined whether a cognitive game-based assessment (GBA) may alleviate these challenges by investigating the construct and criterion validity of implementing game-based features into a traditional cognitive assessment, and the associations between GBA performance, academic achievement outcomes, and associated neural substrates in children ages 3-5. Performance on the GBA was significantly associated with performance on a traditional measure of cognitive control, functional brain connectivity, and mathematical and verbal test outcomes. Children also showed a stronger preference and higher ratings of enjoyment for the GBA compared to the traditional cognitive control assessment.