Executive function development: Making sense of the environment to behave adaptively

Emerging executive function in childhood, one of the main predictors of major life success, is goal-directed in nature. Yet, children’s ability to identify goals (i.e., what should be done) has been under-researched, often implicitly assuming that it is trivial even in early childhood. In contrast, I review evidence for goal identification as a major force behind developing executive function. Both increasing attention to environmental cues and increased goal inferencing from these cues drive goal identification improvement with age. This framework has important implications for assessing and supporting childhood executive function.