Contemplative education courses and academic programs emerging in universities across the United States and internationally have a unique opportunity to help students gain both self-awareness and an awareness of how the self is situated in a larger context. Research utilizing meditation in higher education shows promise in strengthening stress…

Paying attention is a critical first step toward learning. For children in primary school classrooms there can be many things to attend to other than the focus of a lesson, such as visual displays on classroom walls. The aim of this study was to use eye-tracking techniques to explore the impact of visual displays on attention and learning for…

This study examines academic self-efficacy and gender as predictors of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in adolescence. In addition, the role of gender was considered as a moderator in the relationship between academic self-efficacy and internalizing/externalizing difficulties. Participants were 4,318 predominantly African American,…

Many educational institutions, especially higher education institutions, are considering to embrace smartphones as part of learning aids in classes as most students (in many cases all students) not only own them but also are also attached to them. The main question is whether embracing smartphones in classroom teaching enhances the learning or…

Children born preterm constitute one of the largest populations of children at risk for the development of language impairments. A little over one in ten pregnancies result in a preterm birth and approximately 25% of these children go on to experience subsequent difficulties with language (CDC, 2015; Foster-Cohen, Friesen, Champion, &…

Higher education students experience heightened levels of stress and anxiety, and report experiencing negative thoughts and emotions, which influence information retention and recall. In a randomized experiment, we assigned participants to either a mindfulness meditation or an audiobook listening condition, and recorded the information recalled…

Impulsive behavior is a characteristic of children with specific learning disabilities (SLD), and is related to learning ability. The present study aims to identify impulsivity behavior in children with SLD who attend inclusion schools, from their resource room teachers' perspectives. A 31-item questionnaire that addressed four subscales was…

Four experiments tested the conventional wisdom in experimental psychology that participants who complete laboratory tasks systematically differ in their cognitive abilities, motivational levels, and personality characteristics as a function of the time at which they participate during an academic term. Across 4 experiments with over 2,900…

There have been long-standing differences of opinion regarding the influence of the face relative to that of contextual information on how individuals process and judge facial expressions of emotion. However, developmental changes in how individuals use such information have remained largely unexplored and could be informative in attempting to…

Higher working memory capacity (WMC) improves performance on a range of cognitive and academic tasks. However, a greater ability to control attention sometimes leads individuals with higher WMC to persist in using complex, attention-demanding approaches that are suboptimal for a given task. We examined whether higher WMC would hinder insight…

Distractor dilution, which reflects little distractor interference in a context of high display load but easy target processing, has sparked debate between theoretical viewpoints. These two viewpoints can be integrated into a model in which grouping and the efficacy of attention control influence the relative activation strength between the…

This research considers the role of parenting practices and early self-regulation, on children's prosocial behaviour when they begin school. Data for 4007 children were drawn from "Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children" (LSAC). The analyses explored relations between self-reported parenting practices for…

Maureen Murphy-Ryan offers a clinical look at attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Her thorough definition of ADHD and the diagnoses that may occur simultaneously offer teachers an awareness of what this could look like in a classroom. However, it is only with professional medical input that a true diagnosis can be made and appropriate…

Forty-five third grade students, from six different classrooms at a local elementary school, participated in our 3-year study. We delivered three 30-min classroom lessons on mindfulness using a curriculum that included modified lessons from the "Mindful Schools" and "MindUp" curricula as well as material we developed. We also…

Students with Emotional Behavioral Disorders (EBD) are considered the most challenging students to include in the regular education environment. Self-contained classrooms are typically the preferred classroom for students with EBD in comparison to inclusion programs because of the problematic behaviors that are associated with these students.…