As children become older, they better maintain task-relevant information in preparation of upcoming cognitive demands. This is referred to as proactive control, which is a key component of cognitive control development. However, it is still uncertain whether children engage in proactive control consistently across different contexts and how proactive control relates to academic abilities. This study used two common tasks—the AX Continuous Performance Task (AX-CPT) and the Cued Task-Switching Paradigm (CTS)—to examine whether proactive control engagement in 102 children (age range: 6.91–10.91 years) converges between the two tasks and predicts academic abilities. Proactive control indices modestly correlated between tasks in higher but not lower working-memory children, suggesting that consistency in proactive control engagement across contexts is relatively low during childhood but increases with working memory capacity. Further, working memory (but not verbal speed) predicted proactive control engagement in both tasks. While proactive control as measured by each task predicted math and reading performance, only proactive control measured by CTS additionally predicted reasoning, suggesting that proactive control can be used as a proxy for academic achievements.

随着孩子的长大，他们会更好地维护与任务相关的信息，以准备即将到来的认知需求。这称为主动控制，它是认知控制发展的关键组成部分。但是，仍不确定儿童是否在不同情况下始终如一地进行主动控制，以及主动控制与学习能力之间的关系。这项研究使用了两个常见任务-AX持续表现任务（AX-CPT）和提示任务切换范例（CTS）-来检查这102名儿童（年龄范围：6.91-10.91岁）中的主动控制参与度是否在两者之间收敛任务并预测学术能力。主动控制指数适度地在较高但不是较低工作记忆儿童中的任务之间相关，这表明在儿童时期跨环境的主动控制参与的一致性相对较低，但随着工作记忆容量的增加而增加。此外，工作记忆（但不是言语速度）预测了这两项任务中的主动控制参与。虽然由每个任务测得的主动控制可以预测数学和阅读性能，但只有CTS测得的主动控制可以预测推理，这表明主动控制可以用作学习成绩的代理。