known as reinforcement learning (Holroyd and Coles,
2002; Thorndike and Bruce, 1911), may be particularly
valuable in the first two decades of life, affording the
naïve developing child an effective method of identifying
advantageous behaviours and discerning when and
how learned actions should be adapted for changing contexts.
Indeed, impaired reinforcement learning has been
implicated in the pathology of several neurodevelopmental
disorders, including Tourette syndrome and ADHD
(Marsh et al., 2004; Sagvolden et al., 2005), although
the precise deficits in these conditions are unclear. A
thorough understanding of the typical development of
reinforcement learning may help clarify these deficits,
but few studies have examined this aspect of cognitive
development