Training Young Brains to Behave

Great arti­cle in the New York Times titled Train­ing Young Brains to Behave. A cou­ple of quotes:

- “But just as biol­o­gy shapes behav­ior, so behav­ior can accel­er­ate biol­o­gy. And a small group of edu­ca­tion­al and cog­ni­tive sci­en­tists now say that men­tal exer­cis­es of a cer­tain kind can teach chil­dren to become more self-pos­sessed at ear­li­er ages, reduc­ing stress lev­els at home and improv­ing their expe­ri­ence in school. Researchers can test this abil­i­ty, which they call exec­u­tive func­tion, and they say it is more strong­ly asso­ci­at­ed with school suc­cess than I.Q.”

- “We know that the pre­frontal cor­tex is not ful­ly devel­oped until the 20s, and some peo­ple will ask, ‘Why are you try­ing to improve pre­frontal abil­i­ties when the bio­log­i­cal sub­strate is not there yet?’ ” said Adele Dia­mond, a pro­fes­sor of devel­op­men­tal cog­ni­tive sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia in Van­cou­ver. “I tell them that 2‑year-olds have legs, too, which will not reach full length for 10 years or more — but they can still walk and run and ben­e­fit from exercise.”

Full arti­cle: Train­ing Young Brains to Behave.

Relat­ed inter­views with scientists:

- Learn­ing & The Brain: Inter­view with Robert Sylwester
Mem­o­ry train­ing and atten­tion deficits: inter­view with Notre Dame’s Bradley Gibson

- The Art of Chang­ing the Brain: Inter­view with Dr. James Zull

- Brain Con­nec­tion: Eric Jensen on Learn­ing and the Brain

2 Comments

  1. Catherine on September 23, 2008 at 11:15

    I devel­oped a ‘note to self’ func­tion at about age 20 months while learn­ing words and read­ing (Thanks, Richard Scar­ry!), which ignit­ed some ‘expe­ri­ence aware­ness’ pro­gram in me and enabled stick­ing mem­o­ries long, long before pedi­atric neu­ro­sci­en­tists say is pos­si­ble. I’m not sure this is entire­ly rel­e­vant, but I thought I’d point that out :)



  2. Alvaro Fernandez on September 24, 2008 at 5:30

    Cather­ine, indeed, that is a great exam­ple of self-mon­i­tor­ing and orga­ni­za­tion (exec­u­tive func­tions). How did it exact­ly work?
    I will be pay­ing atten­tion to my 6‑month-old daughter :-)



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SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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