Doctoral-level graduate training is, by definition, very demanding from a cognitive perspective. As graduate students adjust to the significant academic demands of doctoral education, they are often in a period of financial, personal, and relational flux or challenge. In addition to what are likely more obvious social and emotional effects,…

A key factor in a child's healthy development is resilience, which allows a child to have an adaptive response to hardships even when exposed to a toxic environment or adversity. Resilience is the interplay between a child's positive environment and adaptive and coping skills outweighing risk factors and adverse experiences to create a positive…

This article synthesizes foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding how humans develop in context. Major constructs that define human development are integrated into a developmental system framework, this includes--epigenetics, neural malleability and plasticity, integrated complex skill development and learning, human…

Executive function (EF) has been linked to many important aspects of child and adolescent functioning, such as academic achievement, self-regulated learning, social-emotional development, physical well-being, and behavioral problems. Planning and organization, two key executive functions, are found to be the most important predictors of school…

Poverty and trauma impact student brain development, health, and behavior. The stressors of poverty (lack of nutritious food, unstable housing, etc.) and traumatic events can put students in a "fight" or "flight" mode. Operating from such places prevents students from accessing higher-order thinking and negatively impacts…

The relations between the developing mind and developing brain are explored. We outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that the mind comprises four systems of processes (domain-specific, attention and working memory, reasoning, and cognizance) developing in four cycles (episodic, realistic, rule-based, and principle-based…

Working memory is the mental ability to temporarily store and manipulate information. Its functioning is distinct from the vast storage capacity of long-term memory and is crucial for optimal learning and development. There is considerable research on several theoretical aspects of working memory. Far less research has explored the application of…

Despite billions of dollars and massive efforts on the part of thousands of highly dedicated and intelligent people over the past 25 years, the size of the test-score gap between the wealthiest and the poorest students has not changed. These problems do not end at high school. Studies suggest that students with low test scores are less likely to…

Teacher reflection has been at the core of teacher development efforts for almost 100 years, yet inconsistency in the literature results from a lack of clarity on how reflection is conceptualized--from its purpose to processes, and how they relate to refining teacher practice. This article draws from research in cognitive science to explain how…

Brain science reveals that there are two periods of heightened plasticity, a time when the brain is especially prone to change: The first period is from birth to age 3; the second is during adolescence. The author, Laurence Steinberg, suggests that this finding should stimulate interest in secondary education as an opportune time to intervene to…

Because a large number of Chinese characters are commonly used in both Japanese and Chinese, Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese as a second language (JSL) find it more challenging to learn Japanese functional expressions than to learn other Japanese vocabulary. To address this challenge, we have developed "Jastudy," a…

Executive functions enable children to pay attention, follow instructions, apply what they have learned, have those "aha!" moments in which they grasp how multiple facts interrelate, think of creative solutions, obey social norms such as waiting their turn and not butting in line or jumping out of their seat, mentally construct a plan,…

Students are frequently expected to complete multistep tasks within a range of academic or classroom routines and to do so independently. Students' ability to complete these tasks successfully may vary as a consequence of both their working-memory capacity and the conditions under which they are expected to learn. Crucial features in the design or…

In this "FastFacts," a state's Department of Education requests information from the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) on how the research defines skills in social-emotional development, approaches to learning, and executive function, to inform planned revisions to the early childhood indicators of progress for children…

Self-regulation lays the foundation for positive social relationships and academic success. In this article, we provide an overview of self-regulation and the key terms related to selfregulation, such as executive function. We discuss research on how self-regulation develops and connections between self-regulation and social and academic outcomes.…