Young children who practice visual working memory and reasoning tasks improve their math skills more than children who focus on spatial rotation exercises, according to a large study. The findings support the notion that training spatial cognition can enhance academic performance and that when it comes to math, the type of training matters. «In this…

A practice used by education pioneer Montessori in the early 1900s has received further validation, with studies showing that finger tracing makes learning easier and more motivating. Imagining an object after tracing it can generate even faster learning, for children and adults alike. Over 100 years later, her method has received some empirical validation. Two…

Infants and young children have brains with a superpower, of sorts, say neuroscientists. Whereas adults process most discrete neural tasks in specific areas in one or the other of their brain’s two hemispheres, youngsters use both the right and left hemispheres to do the same task. The finding suggests a possible reason why children appear…

Preschoolers living in impoverished communities who have access to a nurturing home environment have significantly higher intelligence quotient (IQ) scores in adolescence compared to those raised without nurturing care. The researchers analyzed data from long-running studies conducted in Brazil and South Africa to assess whether children exposed to early adversities (such as extreme poverty, low…

Fewer college-age Americans drink alcohol, compared to nearly 20 years ago, according to a new study. Between 2002 and 2018, the number of adults aged 18-22 in the U.S. who abstained from alcohol increased from 20% to 28% for those in college and from about 24% to 30% for those not in school, say researchers…

Around 45% of children in Austrian day nurseries have a first language other than German. Those who our experiencing difficulty in learning the second language are often diagnosed as having a suspected ‘impairment of language acquisition’. In fact, this often merely reflects the fact that they have not yet fully acquired the second language. In…

Students who attended three different field trips in fourth or fifth grade scored higher on end-of-grade exams, received higher course grades, were absent less often and had fewer behavioral infractions. These benefits were strongest when students entered middle school. As such, many art venues, science museums and zoos have reported declines in field trip attendance.…

New study with 756 1st through 5th graders demonstrates that a six-week mashup of hoops and math has a positive effect on their desire to learn more, provides them with an experience of increased self-determination and grows math confidence among youth. Over the past decades, there has been a considerable amount of attention paid to…

New research has found that people with mild cognitive impairment may not inevitably develop dementia and, in fact, having higher education and advanced language skills more than doubles their chances of returning to normal. The study, led by researchers at the University of Waterloo, may reassure those with mild cognitive impairment as it contradicts a…

Inequalities in income affect how well children do in maths — but not reading, the most comprehensive study of its kind has found. Looking at data stretching from 1992 to 2019, the analysis, published in the journal Educational Review, revealed that 10-year-olds in US states with bigger gaps in income did less well in maths…