children

Resource: Free brain games for children (kid tested, teacher approved)

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exquisiteminds.

Exquis­ite Minds (a web­site for gift­ed and cre­ative chil­dren) has curat­ed a fan­tas­tic list of Free Brain Games, promis­ing that “These free brain games have been kid test­ed and teacher approved.”

We are proud our brain teasers for teens and adults top the list, and agree with their assess­ment that “This site is more intel­lec­tu­al in nature, it’s bet­ter for adult-child dis­cus­sion or for use with old­er kids and adults.”

I hope you (and your kids) enjoy them all!

Non-invasive brain stimulation in children creates opportunities and risks

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TMSvtDCSBrain Stim­u­la­tion in Chil­dren Spurs Hope—and Con­cern (Sci­en­tif­ic American):

“The idea of using mag­nets or elec­tric cur­rents to treat psy­chi­atric or learn­ing dis­or­ders — or just to enhance cog­ni­tion — has gen­er­at­ed a flur­ry of excite­ment over the past ten years. The tech­nique is thought to work by acti­vat­ing neur­al cir­cuits or by mak­ing it eas­i­er for neu­rons to fire. The research is still in its infan­cy, but at least 10,000 adults have under­gone [Read more…] about Non-inva­sive brain stim­u­la­tion in chil­dren cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties and risks

Study: Structural brain differences due to childhood poverty may account for 20% of the academic achievement gap

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Brain_MRI_children

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Brain scans reveal how pover­ty hurts chil­dren’s brains (Bloomberg):

“Grow­ing up poor has long been linked to low­er aca­d­e­m­ic test scores. And there’s now mount­ing evi­dence that it’s part­ly because kids can suf­fer real phys­i­cal con­se­quences from low fam­i­ly incomes, includ­ing brains that are less equipped to learn. [Read more…] about Study: Struc­tur­al brain dif­fer­ences due to child­hood pover­ty may account for 20% of the aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment gap

Neurologists prescribing cognitive enhancement drugs to healthy kids and adults?

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Human-brain-pillsAccord­ing to a new posi­tion state­ment by the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy (AAN), pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, “atten­tion-boost­ing,” drugs to healthy chil­dren is mis­guid­ed and not jus­ti­fi­able. Inter­est­ing­ly, a 2009 posi­tion state­ment by AAN still in force today stat­ed that doing so with adult “patients” is both legal and eth­i­cal (includ­ing the remark that “Neu­rol­o­gists who pre­scribe med­ica­tions for the off-label use of neu­roen­hance­ment are act­ing law­ful­ly,” with­out real­ly chal­leng­ing whether the drugs have been proven to be a) effec­tive and b) safe in that con­text). [Read more…] about Neu­rol­o­gists pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment drugs to healthy kids and adults?

Stretch and Shape the Brain: An Introduction to Neuroplasticity for Children

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Fol­low­ing are two great illus­tra­tions excerpt­ed from the chil­dren’s book: Your Fan­tas­tic, Elas­tic Brain: Stretch It, Shape It. This new book writ­ten by JoAnn Deak, PhD and illus­trat­ed by Sarah Ack­er­ley explains to chil­dren how the brain changes with expe­ri­ences and how they have some con­trol over their brain pow­er and health.  It is a great intro­duc­tion to neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and brain fitness.
A fun read for all brain own­ers, young and old, out there!

[Read more…] about Stretch and Shape the Brain: An Intro­duc­tion to Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for Children

What kind of attention is involved in ADHD?

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An excel­lent arti­cle by the Dana Foun­da­tion clar­i­fies what the “Real Deficit in Atten­tion Deficit/Hyperactivity Dis­or­der” is. Thank you to John from our Sharp­Brains’ group in LinkedIn for point­ing it out.

Among oth­er things, this arti­cle shows you that atten­tion is more com­plex than you prob­a­bly thought: [Read more…] about What kind of atten­tion is involved in ADHD?