How does brain research support the recommendations from Breaking Ranks? There was a great deal of information about specific schools that have implemented recommendations from Breaking Ranks. Although many of the articles described specific types of data used to inform decisions, none was available on how brain based research was used or how it…

Equal numbers of reading disabled children from each of three schools were assigned to treatment or control conditions. After ten group counseling sessions students in the treated groups showed significant increases in oral and reading vocabulary skills. Sentence comprehension was not improved by counseling. (Author)

Article describes the changing, organized behavioral patterns of the sensorimotor period, techniques for treatment, assessment charts, and role of the therapist. (MB)

Two studies of a visual-motor tracking task purported to effectively discriminate subtypes of minimal brain dysfunction are presented. Subjects were psychiatric inpatients, hyperactive males, and normal controls. The tracking task was found to be a useful measure of stimulant drug action but not of specific hyperkinetic defects. (Author/SJL)

Discusses the human trait of attempting to read minds in an attempt to make sense of the actions of others. The term Mindblind comes from the fact that this is difficult for people with autism to do. Mindreading appears to be encoded in the genes and adaptive. (PVD)

Argues that physical activity and water can increase brain activity, and hence, learning. Findings of neuroscientists regarding the brain can inform educators. Brain-based teaching emphasizes teamwork, cooperative learning, and global responsibility. Argues against gathering information without relevance. Connects brain-based learning concepts to…

Principles of brain-based learning, including pattern and meaning making, parallel processing, and the role of stress and threat, are explained, along with their connections to longstanding practices of experiential education. The Brain Compatible Approach is one avenue for clarifying to mainstream educators how and why experiential methods are…

A dual-task paradigm involving concurrent finger tapping and line orientation judgment was used to investigate brain processing differences in 12 early adolescent good readers/poor spellers, poor readers/poor spellers, and controls. In the right-hand tapping condition, the good spelling group displayed significantly less tapping disruption than…

Notes Halpern's general support for Casey's model. Addresses differences in Casey's and McKeever's findings on familial handedness and females' spatial ability by performing another experiment in which data are analyzed according to two different theoretical assumptions. Addresses the question of the heritability of handedness by noting that what…

Results for 75 medical students and 248 undergraduates suggest that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator appears to sample only 3 bipolar personality dimensions rather than the 4 that the use of "type tables" implies. One of these dimensions shares substantial variance with the cognitive model of hemispheric dominance. (SLD)

Investigated shifts of gaze to peripheral targets in full-term and very preterm infants with transient periventricular echogenicity, a type of short-term brain damage, between 6-26 weeks old. Found that differences between full- and preterm infants was small, but after 16 weeks, there were subtle differences between them as preterms took longer to…

Contends that cultural practices such as carrying the baby on the mother's back for prolonged periods can impact negatively on development of visual integration during the sensorimotor stage pathways by preventing adequate or enough crawling. Maintains that crawling is essential for cross- modality integration and that higher mental functions may…