title: Tower of London: planning development in children from 6 to 13 years of age.
abstract: Executive Function is a multidimensional construct that includes a wide range of cognitive abilities that allow solving goal-directed behaviors efficiently. Its development begins in early childhood and continues through adolescence. A key aspect of Executive Function is planning, defined as the capacity to generate and organize the necessary step sequence to carry out a goal-directed behavior. The aim of this study was to assess the development of planning in children. The Tower of London task was used in 270 children aged 6, 8, 11, and 13 years. The results showed that the time required to generate and organize the plan to solve a goal-directed problem increases as the difficulty of the problem increases, and that older children need less time to solve problems with a certain level of difficulty than younger children F(15, 1330) = 8.787; MSE = 1.441; p < .01; η2 =.090. These results are in line with the findings that planning develops through childhood and even during the first years of adolescence.
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Injoque-Ricle
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).
authors.forename: Juan Pablo
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Barreyro
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).
authors.forename: Alejandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Calero
authors.affiliation: Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina).
authors.forename: Débora Inés
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Burin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011340:Problem Solving