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

By Alvaro Fernandez | January 15, 2016

. 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…

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Non-invasive brain stimulation in children creates opportunities and risks

By SharpBrains | September 23, 2015

Brain 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…

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

By SharpBrains | July 31, 2015 |

. 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.

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Neurologists prescribing cognitive enhancement drugs to healthy kids and adults?

By SharpBrains | March 13, 2013

Accord­ing 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…

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

By Dr. Pascale Michelon | January 21, 2011 |

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…

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What kind of attention is involved in ADHD?

By Dr. Pascale Michelon | November 11, 2010

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: 

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