Reading for pleasure during childhood may lead to higher brain/ cognitive development and mental well-being during adolescence

Ear­ly child­hood is a crit­i­cal peri­od for brain devel­op­ment, which is impor­tant for boost­ing cog­ni­tion and men­tal well­be­ing. Good brain health at this age is direct­ly linked to bet­ter men­tal heath, cog­ni­tion and edu­ca­tion­al attain­ment in ado­les­cence and adult­hood. It can also pro­vide resilience in times of stress. But, sad­ly, brain devel­op­ment can be hampered…

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Canadian study finds causal link between time playing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symptoms at age 13

Recent stud­ies have linked screen time — includ­ing video game play — to con­cern­ing out­comes in chil­dren, includ­ing low self-esteem, low life sat­is­fac­tion, and depres­sive symp­toms. Screen time has also been found to be cor­re­lat­ed with symp­toms of ADHD in chil­dren and ado­les­cents, even when ear­li­er atten­tion dif­fi­cul­ties are tak­en into account. These find­ings suggest…

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New book highlights continued brain development throughout adolescence, even into our 20s

_____ Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Probes Myths About the Teenage Brain (Edu­ca­tion Week): “We often think ear­ly child­hood is this dra­mat­ic win­dow of learn­ing and devel­op­ment in the brain, and you’re high­light­ing ado­les­cence as a dif­fer­ent kind of win­dow. Can you talk a lit­tle bit about that? I was told when I was an under­grad­u­ate that the human brain pretty…

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Brain scan study finds links between adolescent brain development and mental health disorders

Scans reveal how teenage brain devel­ops (BBC News): “The team from Cam­bridge’s depart­ment of psy­chi­a­try scanned the brains of 300 peo­ple between the ages of 14 and 24. While the areas asso­ci­at­ed with the basic func­tion­ing of the body such as vision, hear­ing and move­ment are ful­ly devel­oped by ado­les­cence, the areas asso­ci­at­ed with com­plex thought…

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