Neuroscience for (better) education

ANDREA P. GOLDIN

Congreso; II Congreso de la Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Neuroscience Societies. XXXI Reunión de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias (SAN); 2016

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }Executivefunctions (EF) imply processes critical for purposeful, goal-directedbehavior. In children, evidence derived from laboratory measuresindicates that training can improve EF. For the first time, weexplicitly examined this hypothesis based on real-world measures,especially of educational achievement. We developed a set ofcomputerized brain training games (?Mate Marote?) and weinvestigated whether they might yield transfer on typicallydeveloping children in interventions deployed at their own schools. Thegames do elicit transfer of some EF, which cascade to real-worldmeasures of school performance. More importantly, an intervention on6-year-olds equalized academic outcomes across children who regularlyattended school and those who did not because of social and familiarcircumstances.