Development of self-regulation in childhood and adolescence - Professor Iroise Dumontheil

Abstract

Self-regulation, the ability to exercise control over one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours, is a foundational ability which predicts a broad range of academic, social and broader life outcomes throughout development. During this talk I will present some of the research I have carried out in the last 15 years or so, investigating the typical development of cognitive control, how it inter-relates with the development of social cognition and emotional regulation during late childhood and adolescence, and how individual differences in cognitive control development may be shaped by genetics, environment, or cognitive training, and predict academic outcome.

Bio

Iroise obtained a PhD from the University of Paris VI and then was a postdoc in labs in London, Cambridge and Stockholm. In 2012, she started her own lab in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London, before moving to the University of Melbourne in 2023, to take on an ARC Future Fellowship. Iroise uses a variety of methods to study brain and cognitive development including functional and structural neuroimaging, behavioural assessments, and genetics. Her research focuses on the development of cognitive control, or executive functions, during childhood and adolescence, and their functioning in adulthood, as well as the inter-relationship between cognitive control and social cognition and emotional regulation. She is interested in the impact of cognitive training, from computerised games to mindfulness meditation practice, on cognition in children and adolescents, as well as the potential implications of neuroscience research for education.