Research has demonstrated that federal Head Start centers, which provide preschool care to children from low-income families, have little or no long-term academic value for children. This "Backgrounder" adds to the evidence that Head Start has failed to achieve its objectives and should be sunset, not expanded, by demonstrating a…

Many interventions targeting cognitive skills or socioemotional skills and behaviors demonstrate initially promising but then quickly disappearing impacts. Our article seeks to identify the key features of interventions, as well as the characteristics and environments of the children and adolescents who participate in them, that can be expected to…

The Aspen Institute's National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development united a broad alliance of leaders to speak with a unified voice about the urgency of integrating social and emotional development into the fabric of K-12 education. The commission convened a group of scientists, researchers, and academics across disparate…

We have many reasons to invest in preschool programs, including persistent gaps in school readiness between children from poorer and wealthier families, large increases in maternal employment over the past several decades, and the rapid brain development that preschool-age children experience. But what do we know about preschool education's…

In the 2014 report, "Closing the Achievement Gap Through Modification of Neurocognitive and Neuroendocrine Function: Results from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of an Innovative Approach to the Education of Children in Kindergarten," researchers examined the impacts of "Tools of the Mind" on cognitive and academic…

This study explores the extent to which differences in research design explain variation in Head Start program impacts. We employ meta-analytic techniques to predict effect sizes for cognitive and achievement outcomes as a function of the type and rigor of research design, quality and type of outcome measure, activity level of control group, and…

Montessori Partners Serving All Children is endorsed in terms of economic development as a statistically proven return for the money, leadership, parent education, institutional partners, and a sense of community in preparing teachers to serve families with a hub of resources through Montessori Center of Minnesota. Assessment is also integral to…

Authors have argued that various forms of interventions may be more effective in younger children. Is cognitive training also more effective, the earlier the training is applied? We review evidence suggesting that functional neural networks, including those subserving attentional control, may be more unspecialised and undifferentiated earlier in…

During 2009-2012, one Sixth Form College (SFC) introduced Building Learning Power (BLP) as a new philosophy and framework for learning and teaching. This short paper sets out to explain why and how BLP was introduced, and discusses how effective this process has been.

This study sought to determine the beliefs that tenured, in-service high school science teachers hold about how their participation in a large mid-Atlantic university's 6-week summer research experiences for teachers (RET) program might influence their pedagogical practices. The findings show a number of factors that teachers believed helped them…

The present study investigated the effectiveness of a cognitive enrichment programme as a tool for enhancing the chances of immigrant and minority students to be admitted to a technological college. Students received two weekly sessions (four hours) of "Instrumental Enrichment" (IE) during the second semester of the college preparatory…

The purpose of this research is to determine the effects of home-based programmes aimed specifically at improving developmental outcomes for preschool children from socially disadvantaged families. The authors searched the following databases between 7 October and 12 October 2010: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (2010,…

Conductive education (CE) is widely reported as having a range of benefits. In the last two decades, it has expanded internationally. Educational psychologists may well encounter parents requesting this specialist intervention which is not normally offered within Local Authority special needs provision, for children with cerebral palsy and other…

Brain Gym[R] (BG; BGI, 2008) is a popular commercial program sold by Brain Gym[R] International (BGI). Making extravagant claims for improved intellectual and physical development, it is used in more than 80 countries. While BGI's claims are persuasive, to date there is little empirical evidence validating the approach. We examine some theoretical…

This chapter identifies three common pitfalls in the use of the concept of empathy in formal social-emotional learning interventions: (1) not distinguishing between affective and cognitive empathy ("equivocation"); (2) overestimating the role of the imagination in empathizing ("Piaget's fallacy"); and (3) not accommodating the developmental and…