There are age and region-specific changes occurring in the brain during development. This includes converging evidence of prolonged development and organization of the prefrontal cortex throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood, suggesting important parallels between brain development and cognitive development. Such factors when considered in the context of development suggest that the links between neural and cognitive factors are in a continual, dynamic state of flux, with different neural tissues maturing at different rates in different regions of the brain while their ability to communicate with near and far systems through neural networks also are in a dynamic state of change. With development, more networks come online, although at different levels of maturity. During this extended time period, processing speed increases and communication between regions expands as a function of brain structure development and experience. Such a scenario stands in marked contrast to a more traditional position that static brain-behavior relations are established early in development that utilize a limited number of specific brain areas that interact in predictable and uniform ways.