Welcome

The Child and Adolescent Neuropsychology Lab ("CAN Lab") is located in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo. Research in the lab focuses on the development of executive control, a collection of inter-related skills that promote purposeful, goal-oriented behaviour. Intuition tells us that executive skills play an important role in our ability to navigate the changing demands of our everyday environments (as when, for example, we are required to juggle competing demands for our time, shift priorities, and keep track of important information). Although much work has been done examining how executive control develops, our understanding of executive skills in children and adolescents is still limited. How is executive control organized during development, how do specific executive skills improve as children age, and why might these skills be important in a developmental context? These are some of the questions that our studies aim to address in the context of typical and atypical development. The overarching goal of the CAN Lab is to find ways of intervening with children to produce more positive mental health outcomes via interventions that strengthen executive skills.