More than a decade after Eslinger’s chapter was published in the seminal
book Attention, Memory, and Executive Function (Lyon & Krasnegor,
1996), fuzzy definitions still abound. Furthermore, different theories and
models still compete to explain the development of executive function
processes. There is general agreement, however, that executive function
is an umbrella term for the complex cognitive processes that serve ongoing,
goal-directed behaviors. In this regard, most of the definitions of
executive function include many, but not all, of the following elements: