title: A life course approach to the development of mental skills.
abstract: A wide variety of factors across the life course jointly influence cognitive and emotional development. Indeed, research from a variety of disciplines strongly suggests that cognition and mental health are intertwined across the life course, by their common antecedents and underlying physiology in development and in their interplay across adult and later life. We suggest that cognitive and socioemotional function fuse to form skills for life supporting self-regulation, competence, and quality of life that persist into later life through linked reciprocal processes of genetic influence, nurturing, schooling, work, and lifestyle.
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing, London, UK. m.richards@nshd.mrc.ac.uk
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Richards
authors.forename: Stephani L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Hatch
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D004493:Education; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D006803:Human Development / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities / Q000523:psychology; D008603:Mental Health; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D012931:Social Environment; D012951:Socialization; D014937:Work / Q000523:psychology