Syntes: Kassai et al. (2019) — training one executive function improves that function but not the others

Källa: Kassai, R., Futo, J., Demetrovics, Z. & Takacs, Z. K. (2019). A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on the near- and far-transfer effects among children's executive function skills. Psychological Bulletin 145(2), 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000180

Verified content

• [abstract] Near transfer (the trained component): g+ = 0.44, k = 43, p < .001.
• [abstract] Far transfer to untrained executive-function components: g+ = 0.11, k = 17, p = .11 — "no convincing evidence".
• [abstract] The authors question the practical relevance of training single executive-function skills in isolation and link this to the absence of far transfer from working-memory training to academic skills.

Limits

• [assessment] Abstract only; the age range of the included children and whether only randomised studies were pooled are not in the abstract. Far transfer here means to other executive functions, not to academic outcomes.

Why it is in the library

C29 says executive-function training for preschoolers raises executive-function test scores but has not been shown to raise learning outcomes. This widely cited meta-analysis supports the first half (near transfer about 0.4) and adds a step the claim does not yet show: gains do not even spread to untrained executive-function components, which makes academic transfer less likely.

Added 2026-11-15 by the project (weekly source sweep, kind: old (major review); read: abstract). [abstract] = from the published abstract; [full text] = read in the full text; [assessment] = the project's own assessment.