Joni Holmes

MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit | MRC

Multiple studies have explored the factor structure of working memory (WM) tasks, yet few have done so controlling for both the domain and category of the memory items in a single study. In the current pre-registered study, we conducted a large-scale latent variable analysis using variant forms of n-back and backward recall tasks to test whether th...

Not everyone is equally likely to experience mental illness. What is the contribution of an individual’s genetic background, or experiences of childhood adversity, to that likelihood? And how do these dimensions of risk interact at the level of the brain? We investigated the relationship between genetic liability for mental illness, childhood adver...

Early life adversity is associated with differences in brain function and an elevated risk for poor mental health. Using data from children aged 10 (N=5,798) from the ABCD cohort we investigated how adversity relates to functional brain organisation using a network neuroscience approach. We derived four data-driven categories of adversity by fittin...

The widely acknowledged detrimental impact of early adversity on child development has driven efforts to understand the underlying mechanisms that may mediate these effects within the developing brain. Recent efforts have begun to move beyond associating adversity with the morphology of individual brain regions towards determining if and how advers...

Background Common genetic variants make a significant contribution to dimensional neurodevelopmental characteristics such as ADHD symptoms and cognitive abilities. The relevance and structure of these associations within a transdiagnostic sample referred for difficulties in cognition, attention and learning has not been demonstrated. Methods Polyge...

Early life adversity is associated with differences in cognition and mental health that can impact on daily functioning. This study uses a hybrid machine-learning approach that combines random forest classification with hierarchical clustering to clarify whether there are cognitive differences between individuals who have experienced moderate-to-se...

Early adversity can change educational, cognitive, and mental health outcomes. However, the neural processes through which early adversity exerts these effects remain largely unknown. We used generative network modeling of the mouse connectome to test whether unpredictable postnatal stress shifts the constraints that govern the organization of the...

Executive functions can be conceptualised as either a set of higher-order cognitive skills that enable us to engage in flexible thinking and regulate our thoughts and behaviours, or as the ability to integrate knowledge, beliefs, and values when applying cognitive control in everyday situations. These two perspectives map onto the ways in which exe...

Early adolescence is characterized by rapid changes in executive function and increased vulnerability to internalizing difficulties. The aim of this study was to explore whether internalizing symptoms are stable across early adolescence and to identify possible links with executive function. Using data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Develo...

Early life adversity (ELA) is associated with poor cognitive and mental health outcomes. This study uses a hybrid machine learning approach that combines random forest classification with hierarchical clustering to clarify whether different forms of adversity are associated with distinct cognitive alterations, and identify whether any such changes...

Background: Fewer girls than boys are identified as struggling at school for suspected problems in attention, learning and/or memory. The objectives of this study were to: i) identify dimensions of cognition, behaviour and mental health in a unique transdiagnostic sample of struggling learners; ii) test whether these constructs were equivalent for...

Early adolescence is characterised by rapid changes in executive function and increased vulnerability to internalising difficulties. Using data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (ABCD) (N= 11,878), we first explored the dimensional structure of internalising symptoms from age 10 to 12 years and then examined cross-sectional...

Background Behavioural and language difficulties co‐occur in multiple neurodevelopmental conditions. Our understanding of these problems has arguably been slowed by an overreliance on study designs that compare diagnostic groups and fail to capture the overlap across different neurodevelopmental disorders and the heterogeneity within them. Methods...

Despite abundant evidence of the detrimental effects of childhood adversity, its nature and underlying mechanisms remain contested. One influential theory, the dimensional model of adversity and psychopathology, proposes deprivation and threat as distinct dimensions of early experience. In this preregistered analysis of data from the Avon Longitudi...

The ability to solve novel complex problems predicts success in a wide range of areas. Recent research suggests that the ability to cognitively segment complex problems into smaller parts constrains nonverbal reasoning in adults. This study aimed to test whether cognitively segmenting problems improves nonverbal reasoning performance for children a...

Children with learning difficulties are commonly assumed to have underlying cognitive deficits by health and educational professionals. However, not all children referred for psycho-educational assessment will be found to have deficits when their abilities are measured by performance on cognitive tasks. The primary aim of this study was to estimate...

Early adversity can change educational, cognitive, and mental health outcomes. However, the neural processes through which early adversity exerts these effects remain largely unknown. We used generative network modelling of the mouse connectome to test whether unpredictable postnatal stress shifts the constraints that govern the formation of the st...

Anxiety and depression are listed as common side effects for medications licensed for treating ADHD in children and adolescents. This meta-analytic review of randomised controlled trials aimed to explore the effect of medications on symptoms of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents with ADHD. A meta-analytic review of ADHD drug trials...

Several children in a typical classroom experience persistent learning diffi- culties that are likely to reflect weak cognitive skills in one or more areas that include phonological processing, short-term and working memory, and/or executive function (e.g., Bishop & Snowling, 2004; Holmes et al., 2020; Peng et al., 2018; Swanson & Jerman, 2006; Yen...

Background Behavioural and language difficulties co-occur in multiple neurodevelopmental conditions. Our understanding of these problems has arguably been slowed by an overreliance on study designs that compare deficit/diagnostic groups and fail to capture the overlap across different neurodevelopmental disorders and the heterogeneity within them....

General Audience Summary Multiple theories attempt to explain why academic and cognitive performance are closely related. Most traditional theories assume a one-way perspective whereby specific cognitive skills constrain particular aspects of academic development. However, contemporary evidence suggests that links between cognitive skills and acade...

Mutualistic theories assume that the mastering of a skill, either cognitive or academic, supports and amplifies the development of other such abilities. The current study uses network science to model cross-sectional associations between cognitive and academic performance in two age-matched developmental cohorts. One cohort was a community sample d...

Hierarchical dimensional models of psychopathology derived for adult and child community populations offer more informative and efficient methods for assessing and treating symptoms of mental ill health than traditional diagnostic approaches. It is not yet clear how many dimensions should be included in models for youth with neurodevelopmental cond...

Objectives: Fewer girls than boys are identified as struggling at school. The objectives of this study were to: i) identify dimensions of cognition, behaviour and mental health in a unique transdiagnostic sample of struggling learners; ii) test whether these constructs were equivalent for boys and girls, and; iii) compare their performance across t...

Practitioners frequently use diagnostic criteria to identify children with neurodevelopmental disorders and to guide intervention decisions. These criteria also provide the organising framework for much of the research focussing on these disorders. Study design, recruitment, analysis and theory are largely built on the assumption that diagnostic cr...

The formation of large-scale brain networks, and their continual refinement, represent crucial developmental processes that can drive individual differences in cognition and which are associated with multiple neurodevelopmental conditions. But how does this organization arise, and what mechanisms drive diversity in organization? We use generative n...

Children with learning difficulties are commonly assumed to have underlying cognitive deficits by health and educational professionals. However, not all children referred for psycho-educational assessment will be found to have cognitive deficits as measured by performance on neuropsychological tasks. The aim of this study was to estimate the preval...

Practitioners frequently use diagnostic criteria to identify children with neurodevelopmental disorders and to guide intervention decisions. These criteria also provide the organising framework for the research of those disorders. Study design, recruitment, analysis and theory are largely built on the assumption that diagnostic criteria reflect an...

Background International debate around the best models of speech and language therapy provision for children with language disorders has highlighted the need for research into classroom-based approaches and intervention dosage. Working memory (WM) is a cognitive skill linked to attention and language. ‘Recall to Enhance Children’s Attention, Langua...

This chapter provides an introduction to transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), a non-invasive method for modulating activity in the underlying cortex by delivering a weak electrical current through electrodes placed on the scalp. Starting with an introduction to different types of stimulation, we go on to discuss our current understanding of t...

A growing body of research illustrates that working memory capacity is a crucial limiting factor in our ability to follow spoken instructions. Despite the ubiquitous nature of instruction following throughout the lifespan, how the natural ageing process affects the ability to do so is not yet fully understood. In this study, we investigated the con...

A data-driven, transdiagnostic approach was used to identify the cognitive dimensions linked with learning in a mixed group of 805 children aged 5 to 18 years recognised as having problems in attention, learning and memory by a health or education practitioner. Assessments included phonological processing, information processing speed, short-term a...

Children and adolescents with developmental problems are at increased risk of experiencing mental health problems. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is widely used as a screener for detecting mental health difficulties in these populations, but its use thus far has been restricted to groups of children with diagnosed disorders (e.g...

Mutualistic theories suggest that the mastering of a skill, either cognitive or academic, supports and amplifies the development of other such abilities. A mutualistic network framework was applied to map the interrelations between identical cognitive and academic tasks in two age-matched developmental cohorts (age range 8 to 18). One cohort was dr...

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to enhance the efficacy and generalisation of working memory (WM) training, but there has been little systematic investigation into how coupling task-specific WM training with stimulation impacts more specifically on transfer to untrained tasks. This randomised controlled trial investiga...

Background – Hierarchical dimensional models of psychopathology have been derived for adult and child community populations, offering more informative and efficient methods for assessing and treating symptoms of mental ill-health than traditional diagnostic approaches. There have been no explorations of the hierarchical structure of psychopathology...

Childhood learning difficulties and developmental disorders are common, but progress toward under- standing their underlying brain mechanisms has been slow. Structural neuroimaging, cognitive, and learning data were collected from 479 children (299 boys, ranging in age from 62 to 223 months), 337 of whom had been referred to the study on the basis...

A data-driven, transdiagnostic approach was employed to identify the cognitive dimensions linked with learning in a large mixed group of children recognised to have problems in the areas of attention, learning and memory by a health or education practitioner (N=805). The children completed a battery of cognitive assessments tapping phonological pro...

Background: International debate around the best models of speech and language therapy provision for children with language disorders has highlighted the need for research into classroom-based approaches and intervention dosage. Working memory (WM) is a cognitive skill that underpins attention and language. ‘Recall to Enhance Children’s Attention,...

Background Children with cognitive, behavioural and developmental problems are at increased risk of experiencing mental health problems. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) has been identified as an effective screening measure for mental health problems in typically developing children. It is unclear whether it can be used to identif...

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to enhance the efficacy and generalisation of working memory (WM) training, but there has been little systematic investigation into how coupling task-specific WM training with stimulation impacts more specifically on transfer to untrained tasks. This randomised controlled trial investiga...

A randomized controlled trial compared complex span and n-back training regimes to investigate the generality of training benefits across materials and paradigms. The memory items and training intensities were equated across programs, providing the first like-with-like comparison of transfer in these two widely used training paradigms. The stimuli...

Multiple studies have explored the factor structure of working memory (WM) tasks, yet few have done so controlling for the domain or category of the memory items. The primary aim of the current study, which was pre-registered, was to conduct a large-scale latent variable analysis using variant forms of n-back and backward recall tasks to test wheth...

It has been suggested that diverse interventions applied within children's everyday contexts have the potential to improve working memory (WM) and produce transfer to real-world skills but little is known about the effectiveness of these approaches. This review aims to examine systematically the effectiveness of non-computerised interventions with...

Background: A substantial proportion of the school-age population experience cognitive-related learning difficulties. Not all children who struggle at school receive a diagnosis, yet their problems are sufficient to warrant additional support. Understanding the causes of learning difficulties is the key to developing effective prevention and inter...

We present a new framework characterizing training-induced changes in WM as the acquisition of novel cog-nitive routines akin to learning a new skill. Predictions were tested in three studies analyzing the transfer between WM tasks following WM training. Study 1 reports a meta-analysis establishing substantial transfer when trained and untrained ta...

Evidence from dual-task studies suggests that working memory supports the retention and implementation of verbal instructions. One key finding that is not readily accommodated by existing models of working memory is that participants are consistently more accurate at physically performing rather than verbally repeating a sequence of commands. This...

The data presented in this article are produced as part of the original research article entitled “Working memory training involves learning new skills” (Gathercole, Dunning, Holmes & Norris, in press). This article presents a dataset of coded features for pairs of trained and untrained working memory (WM) tasks from randomized controlled trials of...

A randomized controlled trial compared complex span and n-back training regimes to investigate the generality of training benefits across materials and paradigms. The memory items and training intensities were equated across programs, providing the first like-with-like comparison of transfer in these two widely-used training paradigms. The stimuli...

Our understanding of learning difficulties largely comes from children with specific diagnoses or individuals selected from community/clinical samples according to strict inclusion criteria. Applying strict exclusionary criteria overemphasizes within group homogeneity and between group differences, and fails to capture comorbidity. Here we identify...

Background: There are marked disparities between pre-school children in key skills affecting school readiness, disparities that commonly persist and influence children's later academic achievements, employment, and adjustment. Much of this disparity is linked to socio-economic disadvantage and its impact on the home learning environment. Children'...

Evidence from dual-task studies suggests that working memory supports the retention and implementation of verbal instructions. One key finding that is not readily accommodated by existing models of working memory is that participants are consistently more accurate at physically performing rather than verbally repeating a sequence of commands. This...

Background A substantial proportion of the school-age population experience cognitive-related learning difficulties. Not all children who struggle at school receive a diagnosis, yet their problems are sufficient to warrant additional support. Understanding the causes of learning difficulties is the key to developing effective prevention and interve...

Our understanding of learning difficulties largely comes from children with specific diagnoses or individuals selected from community/clinical samples according to strict inclusion criteria. Applying strict exclusionary criteria overemphasizes within-group homogeneity and between- group differences, and fails to capture comorbidity. Here we identif...

Executive functions (EF) are cognitive skills important for regulating behavior and achieving goals. Executive function deficits are common in children who struggle in school and are associated with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders. However, there is also considerable heterogeneity across children, even within diagnostic categories. This study...

Background Academic underachievement often accompanies the symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity/ impulsivity associated with ADHD. The aim of the present study is to establish whether learning difficulties have the same cognitive origins in this comorbid condition as in children who do not have ADHD. Methods Participants were 163 school-aged...

Objective: Executive functions (EF) are cognitive skills important for regulating behavior and achieving goals. Executive function deficits are common in children who struggle in school and are associated with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders. However, there is also considerable heterogeneity across children, even within diagnostic categories....

Recent experimental and clinical research has suggested that Tetris game play can disrupt maladaptive forms of mental imagery because Tetris competes for limited cognitive resources within visuospatial working memory (WM) that contribute to imagery. Whether or not Tetris performance is selectively associated with visuospatial WM remains to be teste...

Introduction Many developmental disorders are associated with deficits in controlling and regulating behaviour. These difficulties are frequently observed across multiple groups of children including children with diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), specific learning difficulties, autistic spectrum disorder, or conduct dis...

Recent experimental and clinical research has suggested that Tetris game play can disrupt maladaptive forms of mental imagery because Tetris competes for limited cognitive resources within visuospatial working memory (WM) that contribute to imagery. Whether or not Tetris performance is selectively associated with visuospatial WM remains to be teste...

Mathematical proficiency depends both on specific knowledge and skills training in maths as well as more general cognitive abilities. In this chapter we illustrate how psychological research can help us understand the cognitive mechanisms that support maths learning and how this understanding can be used to develop interventions to improve children...

The ability to encode, retain, and implement instructions within working memory is central to many behaviours, including classroom activities which underpin learning. The three experiments presented here explored how action—planned, enacted, and observed—impacted 6- to 10-year-old’s ability to follow instructions. Experiment 1 (N = 81) found enacte...

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often fail to comply with teacher instructions in the classroom. Using action during presentation or recall can enhance typically developing children’s abilities to complete multi-step instruction sequences. In this study, we tested the ability to following instructions in children with...

Symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity frequently co-occur with language difficulties in both clinical and community samples. We explore the specificity and strength of these associations in a heterogeneous sample of 254 children aged 5 to 15 years identified by education and health professionals as having problems with attention, learning and/o...

Symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity frequently co-occur with language difficulties in both clinical and community samples. We explore the specificity and strength of these associations in a heterogeneous sample of 254 children aged 5 to 15 years identified by education and health professionals as having problems with attention, learning and/o...

The extent to which deficits in working memory (WM) are characteristic of children with reading and mathematics difficulties was investigated in a large sample aged 5–15 years reported to have problems in attention, learning and memory. WM performance was highly correlated with reading and mathematics scores. Although deficits in individual tests o...