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In Kail’s article on Speed of Information Processing: Developmental Change and Links

to Intelligence, he writes about how global mechanism and information processing speed are tied
together in the development of a child’s brain. He also shows how neuroscience plays a crucial
role in information processing speed and how it changes as children grow into adolescents. This
also shows how the research in some of the other articles are tied together to Kail’s article.

Kail describes how “research . . . is rooted in these new perspectives [in the] intelligence
[of children]. Specifically, research in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and
neuropsychology has revealed that [the] speed of information processing is a key element in [a
child’s] ability to think, reason, and remember,” (Kail, 2000, p. 52) known as critical thinking
skills. This also shows how information processing is linked to working and long-term memory
in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain. This development in the brain can also change over time,
as the child progresses into his/her adolescent and adult years.

This will lead to new research on how “age differences [between children and
adolescence, affect how] processing speed reflect [the] developmental change in a global
mechanism, [which is known as working memory, can] limit processing speed on most tasks.
[He also] examine[s] research [being conducted,] that links [the] speed of information processing
to intelligence.” (Kail, 2000, p. 52) This can lead to changes in the processing speed, which can
vary in children and adults who have had brain developmental problems, like Attention-Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism. This can also make the child or adult loss confidence in
themselves, making it harder them to process the information in their pre-frontal cortex.

In Baddeley’s article on Working Memory, 2010, he writes how “working memory refers
to the [complex] system or systems that are assumed to be necessary in order to keep things in
mind, [as we] perform complex tasks such as reasoning, comprehension and learning.”
(Baddeley, 2010, p. 136) He also writes how the concept of short and long-term memory
“became a [major] topic of interest during the 1960s, [and how it is] linked to an information-
processing approach to psychology, in which the digital computer served as a theoretical basis
for the development of psychological theories;” (Baddeley, 2010, p. 136) and how it relates to
working memory. This ties back to Kail’s article on how processing speed is related to how
working memory works in our brains. Because without working and long-term memory, your
brain would just operate the basic functions of the body to keep you alive.

This also led to research on short and long-term memory, and if people “with impaired
short-term memory should be [considered] cognitively handicapped, (Baddeley, 2010, p. 137) or
if these people were just a little slower, because of a developmental process that occurred during
the blooming and pruning stages, when they were a child. Making neuroscience a major player
in the science of psychology. This leads to “new perspectives [in Kail’s article that] differ in
many of their details, [and that] they share a common emphasis on drawing upon other literatures
in psychology—cognitive, developmental, and neuropsychological—in their proposals for new
perspectives on intelligence.” (Kail, 2000, p. 52) This is why it is important for teachers to
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understand why some children struggle in school, and why some children flourish in school; all
due to the development of processing speed in the working memory.

In Bell’s article, 2003, he writes how “developmental cognitive neuroscience . . . research

has linked individual differences in infant spatial working memory to variations in frontal and
some posterior brain electrical activity.” (Bell, 2003, p. 367) This shows how development in
working memory, is the key to how children develop during their early years of their lives and
how it changes over time. This also ties back to Kail’s article, because without this development
in children, then the processing speed would not develop properly in the children. “This [also
leads to a] consistent pattern of age differences across many diverse tasks suggests [working
memory can] limit the speed [in] children and adolescents [as they] process information. The
mechanism [in working memory] is not specific to [a] particular task[,] but is, instead, a
fundamental characteristic [in] the developing information-processing system.” (Kail, 2000, p.
52)

Now Kail writes on how differences in processing speed “are limited by a common
global mechanism [in the working memory. Even] if the speed of each process reflects
experiences or practice specific to that process [in working memory], then patterns of
developmental change should vary across [the brain; but] in reality [the rate of] speed for
processes such [tasks] as mental addition, mental rotation, memory search, and simple motor
skills all change at a common rate that is well described by an exponential function (Kail,
1991).” (Kail, 2000, p. 53) This makes you wonder if a child’s brain does not develop properly,
if it would lead to problems as they change into adolescence and into adulthood.

This could also lead to emotional problems that will stay with the person for the rest of
their life. Raver states in his article on Placing Emotional Self-Regulation in Sociocultural and
Socioeconomic Contexts, on how “children’s emotion regulation within broader socioeconomic
and sociocultural context, [by] . . . research[ing] emotion regulation among children facing levels
of risks.” (Raver, 2004, p. 346)

Kail also writes that “although the evidence consistently implicates a global mechanism
in developmental change in [the] processing speed [of working memory], the characteristics of
the hypothesized mechanism are relatively poorly understood.” (Kail, 2000, p. 56) This is
important in psychology making researchers look “to look to cognitive psychology for basic
parameters of mental functioning that might correspond to such a global mechanism.” (Kail,
2000, p. 56)

In all, the development process in children can affect how working memory regulates
processing speed that will follow the children all the way into adult hood. Making it so
important for psychologist and teachers to figure out these development problems early in
children. So that they can try and improve processing speed and the emotional state of child,
before they finish blooming and pruning by age 10.
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Work Cited

Baddeley, A. (2010). Working Memory. Current Biology, 20(4), 136–140.

Bell, M.; Wolfe,C. (2004). Emotion and Cognition: An Intricately Bound Developmental
Process. Child Development, 75(2), 366–370.

Kail, R. (2000). Speed of Information Processing: Developmental Change and Links to

Intelligence. Journal of School Psychology, 38(1), 51–61.

Raver, C. (2004). Placing Emotional Self-Regulation in Sociocultural and Socioeconomic

Contexts. Child Development, 75(2), 346–353.