Conclusions about interventions, programs, and approaches for improving executive functions that appear justified and those that, despite much hype, do not

Narrative and systematic review across all ages

All ages; executive-function interventions of every type.

The optimistic review, written by the field's most influential advocate. Diamond co-authored the 2007 Science paper on Tools of the Mind and is a public advocate for it, so her own work sits inside the evidence base she is reviewing. Retained because even the optimistic review concedes the transfer limit.

The authors' own words are the useful part. Wide transfer does not seem to occur. People improve on the skills they practise and that transfers to other contexts where those same skills are needed, but people only improve on what they practise. Once practice ends, benefits diminish - EF benefits can last months or years but almost always grow smaller as time since training increases. Aerobic exercise or resistance training without a cognitive component produce little or no EF benefit. On Tools of the Mind, they distinguish the roughly one-hour-a-day add-on version, where benefits were narrow and specific, from the all-day curriculum version, where they report marked benefits, with effect sizes around 0.8 for lower-income children versus rarely exceeding 0.1 for diverse-background samples.

Not applicable as a review; the underlying trials vary.

The same authors' 2020 systematic review is markedly more sceptical and effectively supersedes this one on the transfer question.