A developmental psychopathology perspective posits that developmental change occurs at multiple levels of analysis (e.g., neural, psychological, behavioral), and is cumulative such that new skills emerge by building upon existing capacities (Cicchetti & Dawson, 2002). Thus, in understanding the development of higher cognitive abilities, identifying how foundational biological processes and prior levels of cognitive functioning impact or constrain their emergence is crucial. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) undergoes significant maturation across the second half of the first year of life (Koenderink, Uylings, & Mrzljak, 1994), and the changes in its organization during this time are theorized to underlie the emergence of attentional control (Posner & Rothbart, 2007; Colombo & Cheatham, 2006) and higher cognition (Diamond, 2002; Bunge & Zelazo, 2006). Although widely accepted, these ideas have not been subjected to rigorous empirical validation; and there is a paucity of available data pertaining to basic neural development in infancy. Thus, quite little is actually known regarding the associations between changes in neural organization across infancy and emerging attention or cognitive abilities.
