The maturation of the PFC is widely considered a driving force behind the rapid changes in cognition that occur between infancy and early childhood (Colombo & Cheatham, 2006; Diamond, 2002; Bunge & Zelazo, 2006). However, very few studies have directly tested the significance of brain development to emerging cognition in typically developing children. The final aim of this study was to examine whether changes in resting frontal EEG coherence across the second half of the first year were associated with emerging cognitive abilities at age 3 through their influence on attentional control at age 2. All three tests of indirect effects were significant: controlling for 5-month values, left frontal EEG coherence at 10 months was positively associated with observed receptive language, cognitive flexibility, and behavioral IC at age 3, and these effects operated indirectly through children’s observed attentional control at age 2. These results suggest that one mechanism by which early brain development influences higher cognition is through its influence on the use of goal-directed attention. Further, these results complement empirical work with older children that has found task-related changes in frontal EEG coherence during cognitive control tasks (Swingler, et al., 2011).
