The peer-reviewed evidence base does not yet support the cognitive-decline claim, and it does not yet support the opposite claim either. Two scientific questions remain open: whether structured human-governed AI use accelerates cognitive development, and what augmented intelligence is in practice. This methodological audit specifies the standards the field would have to meet, scores the existing evidence against those standards, and offers HAIA-RECCLIN Reasoning, HEQ with AIS, and a five-arm randomized controlled trial design as testable counter-proposals.