A Canonical Trajectory of Executive Function Maturation During the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood

Neurodevelopmental theories suggest goal-directed cognitive abilities (executive functions) mature from childhood through adolescence, and deviations from their normative development underlie peaks in accidental fatalities and the emergence of psychopathology during adolescence. The precise maturational timing of when adolescents reach adult-levels of executive function (EF) and the relative developmental independence of possible EF subcomponents (working memory, inhibition, switching, planning), however, remain unknown. Integrating four large independent datasets, two longitudinal and two cross-sectional (total age range: 8-35-years-old, total N=10,123, total visits =13,196) that included twenty-three measures from seventeen distinct EF tasks, we demonstrate that nearly all EFs follow a canonical non-linear developmental trajectory, with rapid and statistically significant development in late childhood through mid-adolescence (10-15-years-old), before stabilizing to adult-levels in late adolescence (18-20-years-old). Both cross-sectional age effects and longitudinal changes among EFs are well captured by domain-general accuracy and latency components consistent with theories of unitary executive function and fluid cognition. Scaled domain-general EF scores generate reproducible adolescent growth charts across datasets and tasks and can quantitatively guide future research. Results have implications for defining the adolescent period, growth charting of cognitive development in health and disease, and linking EF to brain development.