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Children
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Lifestyle Factors and Cognitive Development in Children
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Lifestyle Factors and Cognitive Development in Children

A Special Issue of Children (ISSN 2227-9067) belonging to the section "Pediatric Neurology & Neurodevelopmental Disorders".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 August 2026) | Viewed by 740

Editor

Dr. Lauren Raine

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Interests: childhood; health; wellness; brain; cognition; behavior; neuroscience
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Childhood is a highly modifiable time during which children learn about and discover the world, as well as a time of rapid change and growth. This Special Issue will examine the complex relationships between lifestyle factors and cognitive development throughout childhood (from birth to 18 years old). Drawing together interdisciplinary research from neuroscience, psychology, nutrition and public health, the Special Issue explores how lifestyle factors, including physical activity, dietary patterns, sleep quality, social engagement, stress, adversity, environmental exposures and others, shape cognitive trajectories from early life through older adolescence. Contributors may present evidence on the mechanisms through which lifestyle interventions may enhance cognitive reserve, neuroplasticity and executive function, while also addressing disparities in access to cognitively enriching environments. The articles featured in this Special Issue will advance our understanding of both protective and risk factors for cognitive outcomes, offering insights that bridge fundamental research with practical applications for education, clinical practice and public policy. By highlighting the malleability of cognitive development through lifestyle factors, this Issue underscores the potential for evidence-based interventions to optimize cognitive health across diverse populations of children. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to capture an informative snapshot of ongoing, cutting-edge research across childhood (0-18 years old) in relation to lifestyle factors and cognitive development. Such topics can include healthy and typical childhood, as well as atypical or disordered childhood, investigations involving prediction and treatment, as well as novel techniques to measure brain health and lifestyle factors during childhood.

Dr. Lauren Raine
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • childhood
  • pediatrics
  • behaviors
  • health
  • development
  • brain
  • cognition
  • lifestyle factors

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 359 KB  
Article
Exploratory Biological Correlates of Cognitive and Language Performance in Healthy Pubertal Children: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study
by Merve Savaş, Senanur Kahraman Beğen, Ömer Okuyan and Hafize Uzun
Children 2026, 13(8), 1101; https://doi.org/10.3390/children13081101 - 18 Aug 2026
Viewed by 295
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Adolescence is a dynamic neurodevelopmental period during which structured language performance may reflect ongoing biological reorganization processes. This study examined whether inflammatory, nutritional, and hormonal biomarkers were modestly associated with structured language task performance and cognitive performance in healthy pubertal children. Methods: [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Adolescence is a dynamic neurodevelopmental period during which structured language performance may reflect ongoing biological reorganization processes. This study examined whether inflammatory, nutritional, and hormonal biomarkers were modestly associated with structured language task performance and cognitive performance in healthy pubertal children. Methods: A total of 156 healthy pubertal children (78 female, 78 male; mean age of 11.84 ± 2.98 years) meeting Tanner Stage ≥ 2 were included in this retrospective cross-sectional study. Language was assessed with the Test of Language Development-Primary: Fourth Edition (TOLD-P:4; Turkish adaptation) and cognition with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). Pan-Immune-Inflammation Value (PIV), Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI), Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR), vitamin B12, 25-OH vitamin D, ferritin, and TSH were included as biomarkers. Two-block hierarchical OLS regression and Spearman correlations with Benjamini–Hochberg FDR correction were used. Results: The biomarker block provided a statistically significant incremental contribution to the spoken language model (ΔR2 = 0.066, p = 0.041; full model R2 = 0.287). The primary test statistic was ΔR2. In exploratory coefficient-level analyses that were not corrected for multiple comparisons, the PIV (β = +0.17, p = 0.033) and TSH (β = −0.17, p = 0.031) coefficients reached nominal significance. After FDR correction, PIV was positively associated with WISC-R Verbal score (ρ = +0.24, p_FDR = 0.019) and TSH negatively with TOLD-P:4 Speaking (ρ = −0.22, p_FDR = 0.029). Biomarker contribution to WISC-R Full-Scale IQ was non-significant (ΔR2 = 0.049, p = 0.223). Conclusions: At the block level, the biomarker set contributed significantly to the structured spoken-language model but not to the Full-Scale IQ model; however, one of the two FDR-significant bivariate associations involved a verbal cognitive measure (PIV with WISC-R Verbal). Any language-versus-cognition contrast should therefore be interpreted cautiously. The modest effect sizes suggest these relationships are best interpreted within a developmental and neuroimmune framework. Longitudinal and multimodal studies are needed to replicate these findings. Because the TOLD-P:4/TODİL was applied beyond its validated age range (4; 0–8; 11) and its cross-age scoring could not be verified from the retrospective records, all language-based findings are exploratory and require confirmation with an age-validated instrument; the study’s confirmatory finding is the FDR-significant association of PIV with age-appropriate WISC-R Verbal performance. Because the TOLD-P:4/TODİL composite scores could not be verified as comparable across the sample’s age range, all TOLD-P:4-based results reported here are exploratory and hypothesis-generating; the confirmatory analyses rely on the age-appropriate WISC-R outcomes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Lifestyle Factors and Cognitive Development in Children)
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