A Life Course Approach to the Development of Mental Skills

Abstract

A wide variety of factors across the life course jointly influence cognitive and emotional development. Indeed, research from a variety of disciplines strongly suggests that cognition and mental health are intertwined across the life course, by their common antecedents and underlying physiology in development and in their interplay across adult and later life. We suggest that cognitive and socioemotional function fuse to form skills for life supporting self-regulation, competence, and quality of life that persist into later life through linked reciprocal processes of genetic influence, nurturing, schooling, work, and lifestyle.

Physical and cognitive capability in mid-adulthood as determinants of retirement and extended working life in a British cohort study

“…Participation in bridge and voluntary work requires effort and motivation to find suitable opportunities. The findings may reflect avoidance caused by difficulty with learning specific new skills, lower confidence in securing new employment and also broader limitations in planning and structuring goals for later life (28).…”

Vocabulary from adolescence to middle age

“…The BCS70 childhood cognitive scores have been shown to be important predictors of a range of adult outcomes, including employment (Breen & Goldthorpe, 2001) and health (Batty, Deary, Schoon & Gale, 2007). There is also a growing literature examining the decline in cognitive function from mid--life into old age (Richards & Sacker, 2003, Richards & Hatch, 2011, Richards, Shipley, Fuhrer & Wadsworth, 2004, Singh--Manoux, Kivimaki, Glymour, Elbaz, Berr, et al, 2012. The period between adolescence and early mid--life is relatively neglected however.…”

Social, Behavioral, and Contextual Influences on Cognitive Function and Decline over the Life Course

“…First, newer theoretical frameworks suggest that cognitive and emotional skills are developed simultaneously over the life course (Richards and Hatch 2011 ). This is in line with recent shifts in social inequalities research from social to personal factors explaining later-life health outcomes (Mackenbach 2010 ), and some evidence pointing to associations of personal factors with later cognitive function (Sachdev et al 2013 ;Wilson et al 2013 ).…”