The expanding field of affective neuroscience is redefining the role of emotions in cognition, reasoning, and judgment. This contradicts long-standing assumptions about cognition that consider emotions antithetical to learning. Emotions arose early in human brain development as essential to survival by directing the embodied brain toward…

Background: Educational research has been conducted mainly by using behavioural approaches. Whilst such methods provide invaluable insights into the field, several important questions such as 'how do we learn?' and 'what mechanisms cause individual differences?' cannot be answered thoroughly by using only behavioural approaches. In the last three…

In the fall of 2012, the University of Tampa dance program proposed its first dance major. The vision was to build a unique curriculum that would strengthen our approach to teacher training and offer the tools to teach a wide variety of populations. Much of the inspiration for this approach came from our training with Anne Green Gilbert, the…

School neuropsychology focuses on brain--behavior relationships and how these connections influence the learning process. This specialized field considers the individual and sociocultural factors that influence cognitive development, using targeted neuropsychological assessments to guide effective intervention. While grounded in pediatric clinical…

This essay proposes that it is time to redesign educational curricula to take account of recent discoveries in the neuroscience of the human brain. The identification of mirror neurons has drawn attention to the importance of empathy as a determiner of action and their function is replicated in communication between actors, characters, and…

Psychologist J. P. Guildford issued a challenge to study creativity nearly 70 years ago. How well have we done and what might the next steps be in our endeavors to understand creativity? The field of creativity research has examined the internal thinking process of creativity, largely through measures of divergent thinking and remote associates.…

The past fifteen years has seen a dramatic improvement in our understanding of hearing and hearing loss. Scientists have worked to identify dozens of genes involved in hearing loss and elucidate the complex molecular machinery responsible for hearing. At the same time, there have been rapid advances in clinical diagnostic tools including imaging…

Contemporary education in Sweden is characterized by two parallel processes: the implementation of digital tools in the classroom, on the one hand, and an increased emphasis on brain-based learning, on the other. Proponents of the latter strand of 'neuroeducation' claim that digital media might have harmful effects on learning and cognitive…

Individuals with ASD have been shown to have different pattern of functional connectivity. In this study, brain activity of participants with many and few autistic traits, was recorded using an fNIRS device, as participants preformed an interpersonal synchronization task. This type of task involves synchronization and functional connectivity of…

The purpose of this original essay is to describe the process of developing a stakeholder-engaged research (SER) team with people who have aphasia. The SER process is described through the lens of posttraumatic growth and depreciation in aphasia. This article describes the process of modifying the Posttraumatic Growth and Depreciation Inventory…

As music teachers, a large percentage of our clients are children and young adults. Researchers from the field of neuroscience and the aging brain have demonstrated that music education may benefit the brain and cognition throughout a person's lifespan. Thus, the purpose of the current review of literature is to provide a comprehensive scope…

Failure can be an effective tool for learning, but it comes with negative consequences. Educators and learners should practice strategies that leverage the benefits of failure while managing its negative consequences on learners' motivation and persistence. Towards that goal, this paper examines the biological effects of failure on learning to (1)…

Despite considerable progress made in educational neuroscience, neuromyths persist in the teaching profession, hampering translational endeavors. The initial wave of interventions designed to dispel educational neuromyths was predominantly directed at preservice teachers. More recent work in the field, reviewed here, has shifted its focus…

We present a neural network model of referent identification in a visual world task. Inputs are visual representations of item pairs unfolding with sequences of phonemes identifying the target item. The model is trained to output the semantic representation of the target and to suppress the distractor. The training set uses a 200-word lexicon…

Investigations into the etiology of autism spectrum disorders have been largely confined to two realms: variations in DNA sequence and somatic developmental exposures. Here we suggest a third route--disruption of the germline epigenome induced by exogenous toxicants during a parent's gamete development. Similar to cases of germline mutation, these…