Published Research Results

Below are some of the publications that resulted from projects hosted by the Children’s School.

• Continuity in geometric intuition between humans and monkeys (Jialin Li, Jessica Cantlon 2026)

• Prefrontal cortex intrinsic functional connectivity and executive function in early childhood and early adulthood using fNIRS. (Cassondra Eng, Roberto Vargas, ... Melissa Pocsai, Anna Fisher, Erik Thiessen 2025)

• Longitudinal investigation of executive function development employing task-based, teacher reports, and fNIRS multimethodology in 4- to 5-year-old children (Cassondra Eng, Melissa Pocsai, Virginia Fulton, Suanna Moron, Erik Thiessen, Anna Fisher 2022)

• The Optimal Amount of Visuals Promotes Children’s Comprehension and Attention: An Eye Tracking Study (Cassondra Eng,  Emma Gurchiek, Kalpa Anjur, Karrie Godwin, Anna Fisher 2021)
• The Construct and Criterion Validity of a Cognitive Game-based Assessment: Cognitive Control, Academic Achievement, and Prefrontal Cortex Connectivity (Aria Tsegai-Moore, Anna Fisher, Cassondra Eng 2021)
• Keep it simple: streamlining book illustrations improves attention and comprehension in beginning readers (Cassondra Eng, Karrie Goodwin, Anna Fisher 2020)
• The role of co-occurrence statistics in developing semantic knowledge (Layla Unger, Catarina Vales, Anna Fisher 2020)
• Lumping and Splitting: Developmental changes in the structure of children’s semantic networks (Catarina Vales, Patience Stevens, Anna Fisher 2020)
• A Hidden Markov Model for analyzing eye-Tracking of moving objects: Case study in a Sustained Attention paradigm (Jaeah Kim, Shashank Singh. Erik Thiessen, Anna Fisher 2020)
• Adaptations of Executive Function and Prefrontal Cortex Connectivity Following Exergame Play in 4- to 5-year old Children (Cassondra Eng, Melissa Pocsai, Frank Fishburn, Dominic Calkosz, Erik Thiessen, Anna Fisher 2020)
• Contingent Responsivity in E-Books Modeled From Quality Adult-Child Interactions: Effects on Children’s Learning and Attention (Cassondra Eng, Anthony Tomasic, Erik Thiessen 2019)
• Visual Environment, Attention Allocation, and Learning in Young Children: When Too Much of a Good Thing May Be Bad (Anna Fisher, Karrie Goodwin, Howard Seltman 2015)
• Using Haptic Inputs to Enrich Story Listening for Young Children (Siyan Zhao, Jill Lehman, Ali Israr, Roberta Klatzky 2015)
• The Science of Learning (Ph.D. Dissertation - Karrie E. Godwin, published in Scientific American 2014)
• Learning from Number Board Games: You Learn What You Encode (Elida Laski, Robert Siegler 2013)
• Improving the Numerical Understanding of Children from Low-Income Families (Robert Siegler 2009)
• Labels: Category Markers or Objects Features? Or How Rocks and Stones are Different from Bunnies and Rabbits (Anna Fisher 2007)