Yearly Archives: 2016

For years we’ve known about the literacy gap between children of differing socio-economic backgrounds. We’ve known too that vocabulary acquisition levels are a primary measure of this divide^{1, 2}.

While digital technology makes it easier than ever for children to listen to stories and learn new words on their own, the age-old activity of reading aloud to children — as well as dialoguing about the stories in meaningful ways — may yield a special recipe for improving language and literacy skills in all children.

Reading exposure seems to affect the brain’s “meaning making” centers

The parent-child activity of reading together is believed to foster healthy brain development, vocabulary and language acquisition³. Reading aloud to children regularly from a young age also seems to help them become frequent readers when they are older⁴.

One of the first studies showing positive correlation between home reading exposure (i.e., reading aloud to children, frequency of reading, access to and types of books, and parent-child interactions) and its affect on the brain was conducted last year by John Hutton, MD, pediatrician and researcher at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center ⁵.

Dr. Hutton and his research team studied 19 preschool students between the ages of three- and five-years. Researchers gave a questionnaire to each child’s parent or provider asking questions about parent-child reading frequency and general home reading exposure. (This measure was used later in the study to determine how children who were read to often differed from those who were not.) The children then underwent fMRI analysis (a method that allows researchers to study activity in the brain based on blood flow) while listening to stories being read to them through headsets. They were not exposed to story illustrations at this time.

The study revealed activation in a couple primary regions, including one called the parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex, an area where meaning is derived from language.

Though the study did not seem to document any language or literacy performance of any kind, it did ascertain that children whose parents reported greater home reading exposure had greater activation in brain regions associated with language comprehension than other children.

Researchers of this study suggest that reading exposure, including reading to children, may help children comprehend language more effectively. 

Sparking discussion is key

If home reading exposure correlates with children’s distinct neural processes and may benefit literacy development, do certain factor/s of reading to children make a greater difference?

In 2014, researchers at the University of Maryland developed a study⁶ to explore whether reading certain book genres to children (i.e., chapter or picture books) or engaging in certain read-aloud strategies are better at “foster[ing] … language and early literary development.”

The study consisted of thirty-three pairs of parents and their preschool-aged children. Participant discussions were observed while parents read to their children a picture book and the first chapter of a chapter book. The researchers were interested in evaluating how parents and their children interacted while reading each type of book.

Interestingly, the study revealed that picture books more than chapter book “elicited greater quantity and quality” of conversation associated with stories read, though both types of books could indeed generate discussion.

What seemed more important to the researchers than book genre, though, was the type of discussions parents engaged in with their children during read-aloud time, since these particular types of conversations have been connected to developing literacy and language skills in young children⁶.

 

Strategies for initiating literacy-building discussions

Researchers⁶ shared several literacy-building conversation strategies adults employed when reading aloud to children:

Connect the book to something in your child’s world

• Ask if your child relates to any character.
• If a character has a hobby, ask your child what his/her hobbies are or what he/ she would like them to be.
• If characters are trying to solve a problem (environmental, friendship, or even pet related) ask about similar concerns in your child’s world.

Talk about something that occurred in the past or will occur in the future

• If a character is having dinner, talk about what your child might like to have for dinner later that day.
• If a book addresses the first day of school, talk to your child about this event in his or her life.

Ask the child to predict what might happen in the book

• What do you think will happen next?
• How do you think this will end?
• Do you think Peter will go back into Mr. McGregor’s garden?

Explain or define something in the text

• Explain a higher-level word your child might not know.
• Explain a challenging or abstract concept with an easy metaphor, image or concrete example from the child’s life or your own life.
• Have the child share what it feels like when he or she is “disappointed” or “jealous.”

The questions in practice

I’ve used questions like these in my educational practice with students of all ages. By reading aloud and dialoguing about what we are reading together, I can see where improvements are needed and ultimately where improvements have occurred.

Through this method, I’ve seen gains in students’ vocabulary acquisition, word pronunciation, background knowledge, and self-knowledge in general.

I’ve also determined how my students are processing information by having them read aloud to me. I’ve recently noticed that one of my middle school students reads too quickly, skipping over or mispronouncing several words per sentence. As a result, he doesn’t always comprehend the material. He is now working on slowing down in order to accurately process what he is reading.

Summary

Though it is still unclear how the various forms of reading exposure prime children’s brains for language and literacy development, research seems to highlight the importance of reading aloud to children and engaging in meaningful conversations stemming from stories they are reading. Future research will tell whether this combo is indeed the secret sauce for generating optimal literacy skills in all children.

References & Further Reading

1. Arriaga, R.I., Fenson, L., Cronan, T., & Pethick, S.J. (1998). Scores on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory of children from low- and middle-income families. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19: 209-223. [Paper].

2. Rich, M. (March 25, 2014). Trying to Close a Knowledge Gap, Word by Word. The New York Times. [Article].

3. Rich, M. (June 24, 2014). Pediatrics Group to Recommend Reading Aloud to Children From Birth. The New York Times. [Article].

4. Kids and Family Reading Report. (2014). Scholastic Inc. Retrieved from: http://www.scholastic.com/readingreport/key-findings.htm#top-nav-scroll.

5. Hutton J., Horowitz-Kraus T., DeWitt, T., Holland, S.K., editors. (September 2015). Home Reading Environment and Brain Activation in Preschool Children Listening to Stories. Pediatrics, 136 (3): 466-478. [Paper].

6. Leech, K.A., Rowe, M.L. (2014). A Comparison of Preschool Children’s Discussions with Parents During Picture Book and Chapter Book Reading. First Language, 34(3): 205-226. [Paper].

In 1988 psychologist James Pennebaker¹ and his colleagues conducted a study with somewhat of a counterintuitive design: 50 college students were randomly assigned to write about either a personal topic or an assigned topic that was far less emotional.

Their hypothesis?

That the personal topic group would have improved immune system functioning and less health center visits (over a period of six weeks) as compared to the assigned topic group (control). Here are the instructions that were given to the former group:

During each of the four days, I want you to write about the most traumatic and upsetting experiences of your entire life. You can write on different topics each day or on the same topic for all four days. The important thing is that you write about your deepest thoughts and feelings. Ideally, whatever you write about should deal with an event or experience that you have not talked with others about in detail.

There is no way that a 20 minute writing exercise could have these types of health benefits, let alone six weeks after the initial four days of writing….right? Think again. At the six week follow-up the trauma writing group exhibited superior immune function, as compared to the control group, and a statistically significant decline in health center visits, whereas this was not true for students in the control group. Not only was their hypothesis correct but many studies since then have extended their results. The type of writing strategy described above is often referred to as “expressive writing”, an activity where participants put their thoughts and feelings into words.

To put this effect into context it’s important to point out that a large body of research has demonstrated the benefits of disclosing thoughts and emotions², through both talking and writing in general^{4, 5}. As a specific type of disclosure activity, studies have built on the early Pennebaker findings, exploring the benefits of expressive writing on many health and lifestyle outcomes⁵, ranging from reducing respiratory problems⁶ and persistent negative thoughts⁷ to decreasing the time to find a job⁸. Studying the benefits of expressive writing across 146 studies, Joanne Frattaroli⁵  found a relatively small but positive effect. In discussing the size of this effect, she pointed out that while it was not as large as some other studies have suggested, it still can be a powerful intervention considering the fact that is very inexpensive to implement and is not very time-consuming.

Lastly, it’s important to point out that this strategy is not effective for every outcome⁵. For example, studies on improving body image⁹ have found no effect. Additionally, negative effects have been found for men with PTSD, leading to more doctors’ visits than the control group¹⁰.

What about academic outcomes? Can expressive writing help students learn and perform to their potential?

Interestingly, subsequent studies have also shown benefits for grade point average¹¹, reducing achievement gaps^{12, 13}, and exam performance for those high in math anxiety¹⁴, among other school-related outcomes. In the next section I’ll dive a little deeper and review a few studies that applied the expressive writing framework to learning outcomes.

In The Classroom: Math and Test Anxiety

According to Christina Young and colleagues¹⁵ mathematics anxiety is “a negative emotional response that is characterized by avoidance as well as feelings of stress and anxiety in situations involving mathematical reasoning”. It is a pervasive phenomenon that affects adults as well as children and adolescents at all levels of mathematics education¹⁵. It is also important to recognize that while a little bit of stress is generally healthy and can enhance performance in certain circumstances (see this recent post on the positive side of stress), the presence of mathematics anxiety is associated with poor performance on a variety of mathematics tasks and assessments^{15, 16, 17}. Another factor known as stereotype threat, the burdensome feeling that one’s performance on a specific task will be interpreted through a negative expectation relating to one’s identity, has also been shown to be related to underperformance in STEM fields, especially for underrepresented groups such as women¹⁸.

In a 2014 study, Daeun Park and colleagues¹⁴ used a very similar paradigm to the classic Pennebaker writing prompt in order to try to curb the negative impact of mathematics anxiety on performance. Prior to taking a 60 question math test, they randomly assigned 80 college students to either expressively write about their deepest thoughts and emotions relating to the looming test or sit with the option to write for 7 minutes. The researchers emphasized their responses would be kept anonymous to encourage students to openly express their thoughts.

The results were fascinating; on problems that Park and colleagues classified as requiring high working memory demands, problems that taxed the system used to temporarily store and manage information relevant to the math problem at hand, students in the control group with high math anxiety were outperformed by those with lower levels of math anxiety. Amazingly, this gap disappeared in the expressive writing condition, with no statistically significant difference in performance on these highly demanding problems between those high and low in math anxiety.

In another study, Gerardo Ramirez and Sian Beilock¹⁹ found that the benefit of expressive writing on test performance was only statistically significant for the highly anxious test-takers, not for those lower on that same anxiety scale. Specifically, for students high in math anxiety who did the expressive writing activity, their average test grade was a B+ while those high in math anxiety in the control group averaged a B-. In many ways this is very encouraging: those who are most vulnerable to being negatively impacted by test anxiety may be helped the most by “offloading” their performance-related worries and emotions.

In The Classroom: High-Stakes Test Performance

A study in 2011 by Joanne Frattaroli and colleagues²⁰ explored the effects of expressive writing on graduate entrance exam performance (GRE, MCAT, LSAT) with 104 college students. Nine days before taking their high-stakes test, participants were randomly assigned to either write expressively for 30 minutes about their deepest thoughts and emotions regarding the upcoming test or about what they had done over the last 24 hours. How did the expressive writing group do in comparison to the control group? You guessed it: the expressive writing group performed significantly better on the graduate entrance tests than the control group, 50th versus 41st percentile, respectively. In terms of the individual tests, there were statistically significant effects of the expressive writing group over and above the control group for the MCAT and LSAT but not the GRE. The authors suggested that the null finding (meaning no significant effect) for students taking the GRE could be related to study habits; because the GRE test takers studied less, on average, than their MCAT and LSAT counterparts, the expressive writing activity may have actually reminded them that they were relatively unprepared for the test, negating the positive effects of the task.

An Alternative Approach?

One feeling that I had when I first read about this research is that it all seems so negative. Despite the benefits, many of these studies instruct the participants to focus on stressful situations, including the research on the academic benefits of expressive writing presented above, and it left me wondering what other variations of this were out there? After all, some of the writing interventions report a temporary increase in negative feelings immediately after the activity when the writing activity involved focusing on stressful experiences²¹.

To begin to answer this question, a study by Laura King²¹ exploring the effects of expressive writing with a more positive focus showed that writing about one’s “best possible future self” had statistically equivalent health benefits as trauma writing, without the immediate negative emotional consequences of recalling a traumatic event. It was associated with better health and happiness, as compared to the control group, who were told to write about, in detail, what they were going to do that day. To explain these effects, the authors talked about the importance of visualizing one’s ultimate goals and improved emotional regulation. Along these lines, another study using the best possible future self prompt found that it was effective in improving and maintaining positive mood²². In future studies it would be interesting to see if this type of paradigm would be useful in an educational context.

Another approach, especially in the context of stereotype threat, is writing expressively about values that are important to an individual and making meaning of life circumstances in the context of those values₁₄. This was covered in depth in a previous post on this blog.

How Does it Work?

At this point maybe you are convinced that there is something to this activity and that it could be relevant for education. But how exactly does expressive writing lead to all of these benefits? What is the mechanism that could explain how a short writing activity could lead to superior performance on a test like the LSAT that involves a complex array of skills and knowledge?

The short answer – it’s complicated and researchers aren’t completely sure how it works. However, in her review of the expressive writing literature, psychologist JoanneFrattaroli⁵ identified three of the most prevalent theories, the combination of which could explain the benefits of expressive writing:

1. Inhibition Theory

This theory proposes that expressive writing works its magic by encouraging participants to offload suppressed thoughts and emotions and consequently decreasing stress and improving health outcomes. This relates to the reasoning that Dauen Park and her colleagues¹⁴ used to explain the benefits of expressive writing for reducing mathematics anxiety. As described above, the researchers observed that participants with high math anxiety benefitted most from the writing intervention on problems that were more demanding of working memory. The explanation they offered was that the exercise helped participants let go of worrisome, anxious thoughts, freeing up more cognitive resources in working memory to solve demanding problems. The authors remarked that participants were “offloading” their worries. This reasoning is also supported by studies showing that expressive writing can improve working memory capacity²³.

However, one ingenious study casted doubt on inhibition theory by showing that participants benefited, in terms of less doctors visits, from writing about traumatic events that they had not actually experienced but were instructed to write about as if they had²⁴. If participants were actually benefitting in previous studies by disinhibiting their previously suppressed experiences, this could not explain the benefits of writing about a foreign experience.

2. Cognitive Processing Theory

After analyzing the language used by participants in previous expressive writing exercises, psychologist James Pennebaker observed that the participants who received the greatest benefit from the activity used more causal and insight-oriented words, suggesting that, through writing, participants were arriving at a greater understanding of the experience they were describing²⁵. With this understanding in hand, participants were thought to be better able to manage their stress and realize a benefit from the activity. Pennebaker suggested that telling students to focus on using this type of language in their writing may result in a more meaningful and effective writing experience.

All of us have had the experience of working through our conflicts in relationships as well as internal conflicts. It seems that in that context, both cognitive processing theory and inhibition theory make a lot of sense; first disclosing to someone you trust the thing that is bothering you and then working through it and reaching an insightful moment where you feel better about the issue. This type of process could certainly be happening with expressive writing, the difference being that you are working through issues or ideas on your own, responding to your own language and feedback by adapting what you are writing and thinking.

3. Self-Regulation Theory

One open question relates to explaining the benefits of the imaginary writing exercise described above. Even if one ascribes to the explanation put forth by cognitive processing theory, what good is gaining insight about an experience you never actually experienced? Self-regulation theory helps us gain some ground in that regard. It proposes that when participants write expressively they are practicing regulating their emotions, even during an imagined experience like the one described above. This may give them more confidence to approach problematic or stressful situations in the future, leading to personal improvements. This explanation sheds more light on the best future self prompt variation, explained in the previous section.

Some Important Considerations

The body of research in expressive writing is surely impressive, with benefits for just about any domain that you can imagine. For those of you thinking about incorporating an expressive writing activity in your classroom, it is important to remember that students need to feel like what they are writing about is personally meaningful²¹; simply writing about daily activities or unemotional topics doesn’t seem to lead to the same benefits as writing about an emotionally charged and stressful experience or a scenario related to one’s core values and aspirations. In addition, all of the experimental studies I cited above promised the participants anonymity, which is important to consider in terms of students’ willingness to be open and, of course, student privacy.

It is also important to recognize that there are limitations and caveats to using this in your classroom, as with any psychological intervention. For one, it isn’t completely clear if there are benefits to continuing to expressively write throughout the school year as opposed to a short series of writing sessions. Geoffrey Cohen and David Sherman¹³ remarked that in the value-affirmation writing research there have been studies showing benefits for a series of sessions in year one of an intervention but no additional benefits if the same intervention was repeated in the second year.

Additionally, writing about stressful events is always something to consider carefully, even if it isn’t considered a “traumatic” experience. Eliciting negative emotions in the classroom, could potentially backfire depending on an individual student’s’ prior experiences. In certain contexts, this type of activity could even have a negative effect, as seen in the study on men with PTSD, mentioned earlier in this post. It seems that striking a balance between personal relevance and potentially counter-productive emotional elicitation is an important consideration for teachers thinking about using these exercises in their classroom.

Final Thoughts

When students experience anxiety or stressful thoughts and feelings relating to a prior or upcoming experience their academic performance can often be harmed. Expressive writing, a type of emotional disclosure activity, can help buffer the impact of a stressful academic environment on performance. While there isn’t a consensus on the its exact mechanism, it seems that this is one strategy can be helpful for a variety of outcomes, and is a tool that teachers should consider utilizing when students face obstacles related to phenomena like test anxiety and stereotype threat.

References

1. Pennebaker, J. W., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., & Glaser, R. (1988). Disclosure of traumas and immune function: health implications for psychotherapy. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 56(2), 239. [Paper]

2. Smyth, J. M. (1998). Written emotional expression: effect sizes, outcome types, and moderating variables. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 66(1), 174. [Paper]

3. Esterling, B. A., Antoni, M. H., Fletcher, M. A., Margulies, S., & Schneiderman, N. (1994). Emotional disclosure through writing or speaking modulates latent Epstein-Barr virus antibody titers. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 62(1), 130. [Paper]

4. Pennebaker, J. W., Barger, S. D., & Tiebout, J. (1989). Disclosure of traumas and health among Holocaust survivors. Psychosomatic medicine, 51(5), 577-589. [Paper]

5. Frattaroli, J. (2006). Experimental disclosure and its moderators: a meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin, 132(6), 823. [Paper]

6. Greenberg, M. A., Wortman, C. B., & Stone, A. A. (1996). Emotional expression and physical heath: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 71(3), 588. [Paper]

7. Donnelly, D. A., & Murray, E. J. (1991). Cognitive and emotional changes in written essays and therapy interviews. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 10(3), 334. [Paper]

8. Spera, S. P., Buhrfeind, E. D., & Pennebaker, J. W. (1994). Expressive writing and coping with job loss. Academy of Management Journal, 37(3), 722-733. [Paper]

10. Earnhardt, J. L., Martz, D. M., Ballard, M. E., & Curtin, L. (2002). A writing intervention for negative body image: Pennebaker fails to surpass the placebo. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 17(1), 19-35. [Paper]

10. Gidron, Y., Peri, T., Connolly, J. F., & Shalev, A. Y. (1996). Written Disclosure in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Is It Benefical for the Patient. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 184(8), 505-506. [Paper]

11. Pennebaker, J. W., & Francis, M. E. (1996). Cognitive, emotional, and language processes in disclosure. Cognition & Emotion, 10(6), 601-626. [Paper]

12. Harackiewicz, J. M., Canning, E. A., Tibbetts, Y., Giffen, C. J., Blair, S. S., Rouse, D. I., & Hyde, J. S. (2014). Closing the social class achievement gap for first-generation students in undergraduate biology. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(2), 375. [Paper]

13. Cohen, G. L., & Sherman, D. K. (2014). The psychology of change: Self-affirmation and social psychological intervention. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 333-371. [Paper]

14. Park, D., Ramirez, G., & Beilock, S. L. (2014). The role of expressive writing in math anxiety. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(2), 103. [Paper]

15. Young, C. B., Wu, S. S., & Menon, V. (2012). The neurodevelopmental basis of math anxiety. Psychological Science, 0956797611429134. [Paper]

16. Maloney, E. A., & Beilock, S. L. (2012). Math anxiety: Who has it, why it develops, and how to guard against it. Trends in cognitive sciences, 16(8), 404-406. [Paper]

17. Maloney, E. A., Schaeffer, M. W., & Beilock, S. L. (2013). Mathematics anxiety and stereotype threat: shared mechanisms, negative consequences and promising interventions. Research in Mathematics Education, 15(2), 115-128. [Paper]

18. Shapiro, J. R., & Williams, A. M. (2012). The role of stereotype threats in undermining girls’ and women’s performance and interest in STEM fields.Sex Roles, 66(3-4), 175-183. [Paper]

19. Ramirez, G., & Beilock, S. L. (2011). Writing about testing worries boosts exam performance in the classroom. science, 331(6014), 211-213. [Paper]

20. Frattaroli, J., Thomas, M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2011). Opening up in the classroom: Effects of expressive writing on graduate school entrance exam performance. Emotion, 11(3), 691. [Paper]

21. King, L. A. (2001). The health benefits of writing about life goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(7), 798-807. [Paper]

22. Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How to increase and sustain positive emotion: The effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1(2), 73-82. [Paper]

23. Klein, K., & Boals, A. (2001). Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(3), 520. [Paper]

24. Greenberg, M. A., Wortman, C. B., & Stone, A. A. (1996). Emotional expression and physical heath: Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 71(3), 588. [Paper]

10. Pennebaker, J. W. (1993). Putting stress into words: Health, linguistic, and therapeutic implications. Behaviour research and therapy, 31(6), 539-548. [Paper]

When I was teaching math, I worked with many students like Olivia. She was a sophomore in high school and wanted to be an actress; her parents were artists; her brother was, without hyperbole, a guitar prodigy. Olivia’s family needed art like plants need the sun and, in an unfortunately common pairing, they all shared a distaste for mathematics.

I spent much of my teaching career thinking about students like Olivia. By the time they reached me, by high school, their anti-math tendencies ran deep. By age fifteen or sixteen, my anti-math students had nearly two decades of math-negative signaling: parents who disliked math, dull curricula, and a predominant culture in the United States that treats math like magic instead of an accessible tool that everyone should learn to use (there is a lot of good discussion about this: try reading Petra Bonfert-Taylor’s Washington Post article about math culture). Sometimes I had a student like Olivia who actually believed me when I told her she could do math, who took the leap of faith and boarded my magic (not magic) carpet of math exploration. But just as often, my attempts to spark excitement and curiosity about mathematics in my anti-math students fell short.

I began training to become a neuroscientist in part because of these students. I dwelled often on their brains compared to the brains of the math-lovers in my classes. I wondered how early in development children start to build concepts related to number, and how early differences in numerical development might begin that will, later on, manifest in school. I’ll get to their brains in a moment, but the first thing I realized–and many of you know this already–is that confidence and curiosity in mathematics can, and should, start young. From birth, even. Starting on day one, parents have the opportunity to promote an appreciation, if not a love, of mathematics¹.

Since I just proposed doing math with infants, many of you probably stopped reading. But if you’re still with me, I learned three main ideas from education and neuroscience that brought me to this conclusion:

1. There is a large consensus on promoting language and literacy from birth. The principles for promoting mathematics are tremendously similar.
2. Plenty of evidence demonstrates how mathematical skills can be just as or more important than language skills in measurements of future success².
3. Unlike reading or speaking, babies already do math (well, they are at least able to discriminate between sets of two and three objects³).

Reading for babies

Head Start launched in 1965 in the United States as a program that supported disadvantaged preschool children and their families. Initially an eight-week summer program, Head Start grew to become an essential provider of early childhood support throughout the year, with classes, services, and outreach programs (Sesame Street, in fact, launched under Head Start funding in 1969). Importantly, Early Head Start was formed in 1994 to serve children ages zero to three–in response to research that indicated the importance of these years to cognitive, physical, and emotional growth.

This idea, that the first three years of life may be more important for future development than, say, ages seven to ten, has taken root in the world of reading and language development. For example, some parents and researchers have become very familiar with the following figures, summarizing some of the work by Hart and Risley, who provide evidence that oral language enrichment from birth affects later language development:

Nowadays, I meet many parents who know the importance of “language nutrition” (to steal a phrase from Rose Hendricks’ article on this subject) and even know the importance of speaking to their infants. My brother and his wife, with their first child, knew that they should speak as much as possible with their newborn, even if they didn’t quite know why.

I’m not writing about reading, however. I’m writing about math. And my point is simple: just as early exposure to oral language is important for language development and later reading, so is early exposure to numerical thinking to later math ability and appreciation. When children see their parents reading every evening, they (often) learn a love of reading. When children see their parents interact with and promote numerical thinking, they (often) learn a love of math.

Skwarchuk, Sowinski, and LeFevre⁵ studied the home environments of four-year-olds and looked for correlations to numeracy and literacy scores one year later. They found that formal home numeracy practices predicted children’s knowledge of the symbolic number system and exposure to games with numerical content predicted children’s non-symbolic arithmetic. Another study from Libertus, Feigenson, and Halberda⁶ found evidence that in three- to five-year-olds, early understanding of small numerical quantities correlated to later mathematical ability.

In summary, research and practice both support language and literacy development from birth. Research also provides evidence supporting numerical development from birth, but in my experience I have not observed an equivalent excitement for numerical development in the United States. I propose that we, as a culture, shift to show babies a world filled with oral language and numerical thinking.

Math can affect later outcomes as much as reading!

Duncan and colleagues², in a longitudinal study of students from school entry to age 14, found that school-entry numerical skills correlated with later academic achievement more than school-entry language skills. The authors write, “Before they enter preschool, children vary greatly in their numerical and mathematical knowledge, and this knowledge predicts their achievement throughout elementary school.” In another study from the National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy in England⁷, researchers analyzed a massive longitudinal data set that followed infants from birth to ages past 30. They found that early numeracy and literacy both contributed to several outcomes in adulthood such as high-school drop-out rate, level of education achieved, rate of employment, and salary. In some subgroups, numeracy, more than literacy, predicted economic well-being, rate of home ownership, and even conflicts with authority.

It is important to note that early numeracy and literacy are not the only measures that correlate with later outcomes. In the studies discussed above, the comparison between numeracy and literacy controls for other important factors such as socio-economic status, which has a strong correlation with all cognitive skills⁸. My point here is simply that early numerical ability is important for future development–not just in mathematics but towards significant life outcomes. I argue that this correlation between early numeracy and later outcomes is another reason that parents and teachers in the United States should promote numerically rich environments from birth.

Babies already do math

Animals do math. They count, compare quantities and perform basic operations. In a famous study of chimpanzees⁹, for example, subjects were presented with trays with different numbers of chocolate pieces, and they consistently chose the tray with the greater number. Other experiments have tested animals using different senses (hearing, touch, sight, etc.) and paradigms in which the number is independent of the reward: Church and Meck¹⁰, for example, gave rats a lever-pressing task in which rats listened to tones and pressed one lever for two tones and a different lever for four tones. They also found that rats had an innate sense of quantity.

Research exploring the numerical abilities of babies has developed very clever methods for measuring their ability to detect number. Early studies relied on the fact that babies stare longer at novel scenarios^3,11. When presented with two dots over and over, babies would lose interest and stare for less time at each presentation. But when the stimulus changed to three dots, babies would stare at the presentation longer. This kind of result has been shown with infants younger than one year and even in newborns. Later studies introduced different paradigms and better visual and spatial controls, and consistently found that infants detect numerosity¹².

Studies in neuroscience have provided some additional evidence for innate numerical abilities in human infants. For example, Izard and colleagues¹³ tested three-month-old infants by presenting arrays of objects in different combinations of number and identity. They might show, for example, three carrots and later show images with different numbers of carrots or the same number but with different objects. Using event-related electroencephalogram (ERP—this measures electrical activity in the brain after a specific stimulus is presented), they found that neural activity differed for number (i.e., same object but in different quantities) compared to object identity (same quantity but different objects). Number changes were uniquely marked by differences in the right parietal region of the cortex, while identity changes were uniquely marked by differences in the occipito-temporal cortex. Since the right parietal region of the cortex is a region that has been shown in older children and adults to be important for numerical processing, this study provides evidence that even at three months of age, infants may show early neural signatures of numerical ability.

What is math for babies?

Some clues as to which environmental factors are conducive to early numerical development come from studies that compare the effects of culture and language on pre-schooling numerical ability and the correlation of this ability to later academic performance. Many studies, for example, compare native Mandarin to native English households due to interesting differences in culture and language^14,15. These studies note that Mandarin words for numbers are more clear about quantity than English words. For example, the English word “one” can mean the number one, but it can also be expressed in the plural as in “these ones are my favorite”. This ambiguity does not exist for the Mandarin number. The linguistic clarity for Mandarin numbers may contribute to the advantage of Chinese schoolchildren in mathematics compared to those in the United States (reported in the above studies). Other factors include formal education experiences with parents and parental views on the importance of academic learning.

Generally, here are some basic ideas of what a rich numerical environment might involve for infants:

• Frequent parental use of numeric speech, especially speech that identifies the quantities in groups (e.g. three giraffes, ten penguins)
• Frequent subitizing (labeling small sets–groups of one, two, or three items)
• Games, toys, and books that promote numerical and spatial thinking
• Adults who, in the presence of the infant, include numeracy in their discussions and show positive attitudes towards mathematics

While these ideas are not complex or difficult, implementing them will involve changing individual and group-level habits, which can be quite hard, indeed. Changing numerical culture in the United States, however, would be extremely beneficial. Generally, the lesson I’ve gleaned from my years as a teacher and a scientist is: If we want to improve in any domain, we can improve K-12 and higher education (and we should!), but pre-K might be just as important or even more. This is the period during which children are exposed to their new worlds and make unconscious decisions about how the world should be.

In the case of Olivia, my math-phobic high-school student, I believe her distaste for mathematics began when she was born. Her parents, both math-phobic artists, probably avoided math language around her and promoted the arts over numerical games. Her early environment probably cascaded into other influences such as a lack of mathematical enthusiasm in her broader communities and, later, a couple years of negative classroom experiences. I believe, however, it is possible—and easy!—to promote mathematics and the arts or literacy. With newborns, it may be as simple as counting.

References & Further Reading

1. Lefevre, J. A., Kwarchuk, S. L., Smith-Chant, B. L., Fast, L., Kamawar, D., & Bisanz, J. (2009). Home numeracy experiences and children’s math performance in the early school years. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 41(2), 55–66.
2. Duncan, G. J., Dowsett, C. J., Claessens, A., Magnuson, K., Huston, A. C., Klebanov, P., … Japel, C. (2007). School readiness and later achievement. Developmental Psychology, 43(6), 1428–46.
3. Antell, S. E., & Keating, D. P. (1983). Perception of numerical invariance in neonates. Child Development, 54(3), 695–701.
4. Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (2003). The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap by age 3. American Educator, 27(1), 1–6.
5. Skwarchuk, S.-L., Sowinski, C., & LeFevre, J.-A. (2014). Formal and informal home learning activities in relation to children’s early numeracy and literacy skills: the development of a home numeracy model. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 121, 63–84.
6. Libertus, M. E., Feigenson, L., & Halberda, J. (2011). Preschool acuity of the approximate number system correlates with school math ability. Developmental Science, 14(6), 1292–1300.
7. National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (2005). Does Numeracy Matter More ? London: Parsons, S., & Bynner, J.
8. Lee, V. E., & Burkam, D. T. (2002). Inequality at the starting gate: Social background differences in achievement as children begin school. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.
9. Rumbaugh, D. M., Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Hegel, M. T. (1987). Summation in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 13(2), 107-115.
10. Church, R. M., & Meck, W. H. (1984). The numerical attribute of stimuli. In H. L. Roitblat, T. G. Bever & H. S. Terrace (Eds.), Animal Cognition (pp. 445-464). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
11. Starkey, P., Cooper, R. G. (1980). Perception of numbers by human infants. Science, 210(4473), 1033-1035.
12. Dehaene, S. (1997). The number sense. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
13. Izard, V., Dehaene-Lambertz, G., & Dehaene, S. (2008). Distinct cerebral pathways for object identity and number in human infants. PLoS Biology, 6(2), 275–285.
14. Chang, A., Sandhofer, C. M., Adelchanow, L., & Rottman, B. (2011). Parental numeric language input to Mandarin Chinese and English speaking preschool children. Journal of Child Language, 38(2), 341–55.
15. Miller, K. F., Smith, C. M., Zhu, J., & Zhang, H. (1995). Preschool origins of cross-national differences in mathematical competence: The role of number-naming systems. Psychological Science, 6(1), 56–60.

• Risley, T. R., & Hart, B. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Maryland: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
• Bonfert-Taylor, Petra (2016, April 25). Stop telling kids you’re bad at math. You are spreading math anxiety ‘like a virus.’ The Washington Post.

In April of 2014, Pam Mueller and Dan Oppenheimer struck psychology gold with their cleverly titled article, “The Pen is Mightier than the Laptop: Advantages of Longhand over Laptop Note Taking.”¹

No psychology article that I know of has gotten so much play: in newspaper articles, in teacherly blogs, in faculty room debates.

Heck, it shows up regularly on my Facebook feed, as my exasperated college professor friends vow to ban laptops from their classrooms. That prohibition will benefit students! Science says so!

Among the article’s many strengths: it confirms what we knew all along. The way we did things back in the day—that way was better. (If you’re so inclined, you might now add nostalgic words about high cotton paper positively drinking the ink from a fountain pen…)

More or Less Fidelity

Mueller and Oppenheimer picked a research question with two impressive qualities: teachers agree that it’s a really important inquiry, and it’s relatively easy to investigate.

So, the research team had two groups of students watch a lecture. One group took handwritten notes; the second group took laptop notes. On a later test, which group remembered more?

Being careful researchers, Mueller and Oppenheimer went beyond “laptop notes” and “handwritten notes” to investigate two other potentially important variables.

First: the number of words that students wrote. Did the students who wrote fewer words score higher on the ultimate test? Or, the students who wrote more words?

Let’s imagine the professor says this:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

A student could write lots of words:

• Four score and seven years ago
• Fathers brought forth new nation
• Conceived in liberty
• Dedicated to prop: all men equal

Or, relatively few words:

• Four score and seven
• New nation
• Liberty
• Equality

The second variable: fidelity to the lecturer’s words.

A student could copy down those words verbatim:

• Four score and seven years ago
• Fathers brought forth new nation
• Conceived in liberty
• Dedicated to prop: all men equal

Or, a student could deliberately put those ideas into her own words

• 87 years ago
• Revolutionary war created US
• Two goals; free people, equal people
• Might freedom conflict with equality?

Looking at all these variables—laptops vs. notebooks, number of words, and fidelity of notes—Mueller and Oppenheimer reached three conclusions.

a) The Big Reveal: hand-writers remembered more than laptop note-takers. When it comes to classroom note-taking, in the authors’ words: “the pen is mightier than the laptop.”

b) The number of words does matter. Students who wrote MORE words remembered more information than those who wrote FEWER words.

c) The fidelity of notes does matter. Students who REWORDED their notes remembered more information than those who took down the speaker’s words VERBATIM.

These conclusions align with our preconceptions. After all, a) OF COURSE handwritten notes are better. And, b+c) students who write more words, and write more of their own words, have devoted more mental energy to processing the ideas in the lecture. As we all know, more mental processing = more learning.

Laptops with Limits

These conclusions, however, create a bit of a puzzle. Handwriting takes more time and physical coordination than does typing, so laptop note-takers can write more words than hand-writers. If more words = more learning, why do the wordy laptop note-takers fall short of the relatively taciturn hand-writers on the final test?

Here we arrive at Mueller and Oppenheimer’s key finding: laptop note takers write more words, but they use this excess word capacity to write more VERBATIM words. Because hand-writers simply can’t write down everything the lecturer says, they have to REWORD the ideas in the lecture. This rewording leads to more cognitive effort, and that cognitive effort leads to more learning.

In other words, technology steers note-takers in meaningful directions. Those who use paper-and-pencil technologies write slowly, and therefore must reword their notes. Those who use laptop technologies write quickly, and therefore take down the speaker’s words verbatim. This second choice might seem wiser, but in fact reduces processing and thus undermines long-term learning.

Replacing evil with virtue

Being careful researchers, Mueller and Oppenheimer didn’t stop here. Instead, they asked a crucial question: can laptop note-takers learn to replace verbatim notes with reworded notes? Could they, in other words, use their capacity to write more words for good, rather than for evil?

To answer this question, they repeated their study, and they gave laptop note takers stern instructions: “People who take class notes on laptops … tend to transcribe what they’re hearing without thinking about it much. Please try not to do this as you take notes today. Take notes in your own words and don’t just write down word-for word what the speaker is saying”.

The result? Nothing changed. Defying these admirably clear instructions, laptop note-takers took verbatim notes, and remembered less than the hand-writers, who used their own words.

So, there you have it. Laptop note-takers can’t be retrained to reword their notes. Because hand-writers do reword their notes, the pen is mightier than the laptop…

Case Closed.

Case Reopened?

Let’s try an analogy here. When I tell my students how to subordinate a quotation in a participial phrase, they often try and fail. When they try and fail, I conclude that they can’t do it, and so I stop asking them to subordinate quotations in participial phrases. In brief, I give up. Isn’t that what you do?

Well, of course not. We’re teachers. When we show our students how to do something, they ALWAYS fail the first time. And, most likely, several more times. For this reason, we naturally build in time for students to practice. Learning any meaningful skill requires structured repetition. Obviously.

And yet, Mueller and Oppenheimer insist just the opposite. You can hear them cry: “Those laptop note-takers really should have used their own words BECAUSE WE EXPLICITLY TOLD THEM TO.”

Once. You told them to, once.

Did they get to practice? No. Did you tell them why? Not really. And: you’re surprised they didn’t change a behavior they’ve been practicing since they first started taking notes on laptops? Really?

A New Hypothesis

Let’s combine our experience as teachers with Mueller and Oppenheimer’s research.

Teacherly wisdom shows that we can train students to learn new skills: how to multiply fractions, how to use the subjunctive, how to throw a knuckleball. It seems highly likely that we can train laptop note takers to reword their notes. This training might take some time. The students’ progress probably won’t be constant. But, they can learn to do it.

After all: hand-writers have learned to reword their notes, so it’s hard to understand why laptop note-takers can’t.

If students succeed in this project, then they will end up with an awesome classroom superpower: the ability to write more words AND reworded words. With this superpower, they should remember even more than the hand-writers, who write fewer words that are reworded words. This likelihood, in fact, flows directly from Mueller and Oppenheimer’s research.

Under the right circumstances, the laptop just might defeat the pen.

Mind you: the study to test this hypothesis has not—to my knowledge—been done. But the hypothesis is, I think, the best interpretation of Mueller and Oppenheimer’s research.

Some Final Thoughts

1. I should admit my own biases here. I take laptop notes. In fact, I’m a touch typist. I’m even a touch typist on the Dvořak keyboard. Like Liam Neeson, I’ve put a lot of hours into learning a particular set of skills. I’d be sad to learn those skills were weakening, not strengthening, my learning.
2. Wise teachers often object that laptops introduce many other sources of potential distraction: Insta-snap-face-chat-gram, or email, or—heaven help us—Netflix. This objection is obviously true; in fact, Faria Sana has done impressive research into the power of these distractions.² However, this objection doesn’t focus on Mueller and Oppenheimer’s underlying claim: the very technology that we use to take notes shapes their helpfulness. If laptop notes can truly boost learning more than hand-written notes, then we should help our students get those benefits without losing them to YouTube distractions.
3. Even if Mueller and Oppenheimer’s study were done perfectly, teachers should still be cautious about adopting its conclusions. As you have read many times in this blog, we should look at bodies of research, not only at individual studies.
4. The collaboration between psychology and education should be a conversation, not a lecture. When psychologists say “do this,” teachers should a) look hard at the research that led to that guidance, and b) use our own experience to ask hard questions. In other words: we should not take verbatim notes when psychologists speak—we should reword and reconsider as we go.
5. We should ask those hard questions even when—perhaps especially when—psychology research seems to confirm beliefs that we have held all along. If we’ve always known that handwritten notes are best, then we should be thoughtfully skeptical of research that tells us what we want to hear. Me included.

Reference & Further Reading

1. Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological science, 0956797614524581. [Paper]
2. Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24-31. [Paper]

“I am a lean, mean, mathing machine.” 

In college, I’d repeat this phrase to myself, muttering under my breath before every calculus exam. This mantra reminded me that I was tough, prepared, and capable of setting aside my nerves.

People engage in self-talk all day long, and it’s a powerful tool for shaping emotional well-being. The pep talks we give ourselves can make daily stressors more manageable, helping us to push past bumps in the road. And changing the way we talk to ourselves may be a powerful tool for regulating our emotions. For example, in one study, adults at risk for depression who were coached to talk to themselves in ways that fought back at their “inner critic” saw a reduction in depressive symptoms.¹

Being deliberately strategic about the way that we talk to ourselves in frustrating, stressful, or tempting situations may help us persist on challenging tasks, pursue actions aligned with our goals, and perform our best. So what does science suggest about the kinds of self-talk that might be more effective at steering yourself (and your students) toward better regulation?

Below are three lessons from current research on self-talk:

1. Avoid “I”

Using your own name instead of first person pronouns (I, my, etc.) during self-talk may help you approach challenges more effectively.

In one experiment, scientists told participants that they were studying first impressions.² They instructed participants to try to make a good impression when meeting a member of the opposite sex—a situation that usually provokes some anxiety. The researchers gave people 2 minutes to prepare. In one group, participants were instructed to use first-person pronouns while preparing. In the other group, they were instructed to use their own names.

People who used their own names reported greater decreases in anxiety after the interaction. Independent judges that watched videos of the interaction rated these participants as having made a better impression overall.

Because people use names and third-person pronouns to refer to other people, the authors of the study suggest that using this voice helps people move away from self-centered perspectives toward more objective thinking.

This fits into research on “psychological distancing,” which suggests that putting distance between yourself and the situation can support self regulation. In another study, using the third person and pretending to be a fictitious character (such as Batman or Dora) were both related to better executive functioning* in 5-year olds, but not in 3-year-olds.³ This suggests that pretend play may also be able to generate psychological distance. The authors suggest that the 3-year-olds in the study didn’t benefit from psychological distancing because they weren’t yet able to effectively take on different perspectives.

Why does psychological distancing help? In one study, 226 African-American adolescents were asked to reflect on a recent experience that made them angry. After reflecting, they were asked some questions about how they remembered the episode. The more teens reported feeling distant from the experience (e.g., like they were watching it from far away, or that it seemed like a movie), the less upset they felt.⁴ When researchers read the teens’ written reflections on the angry scenarios, describing the situation with more distance was linked to re-interpreting the situation with some potentially productive insight, rather than a straightforward summary of the experience.

2. Embrace labels

Putting a label on your feelings may help regulate negative emotions. Some studies suggest that labeling emotions reduce people’s physical responses (specifically heart rate and sweat) after a stressful experience. In one study, the more anxiety-related words people identified (from a set) as describing their emotional state during exposure therapy, the more their body responses dropped after a stressful experience.⁵

The authors of this study suggest that practice with labeling emotions may help your brain learn to support better regulation. What do they mean?

Labeling the emotions is found to increase blood flow (suggesting neural activity) to an area in the far right part of the prefrontal cortex known as the right ventrolateral PFC.⁶ In one study, greater blood flow to this part of the brain was linked to less neural activity (inferred from from blood flow) in the amygdala, a brain region important in processing fear. This link between the prefrontal cortex-amygdala suggests a possible mechanism for emotional regulation supported by labeling the emotions. It is important to note that these brain regions are also involved in many other behaviors and emotions, so more work is needed to confirm this connection. However, it converges with other research suggesting that labels have value.

Unlike switching to using third-person language, emotion labeling seems to only change people’s body responses, not how anxious people report feeling.⁵ Some suggest that this means that labeling feelings isn’t helpful. But others suggest that people who have labeled their emotions still experience anxious feelings, but simply aren’t as upset by them, which is reflected in their body responses.

3. Be specific

Some people tend to use more specific words to describe their experiences, while others use more general ones. For example, some people might describe a car accident they experienced as scary, terrifying, or harrowing, while others might describe the same situation as simply “bad.”

In general, more clarity and specificity regarding personal experiences is what some psychologists call “emotional granularity.” In adults, having higher emotional granularity is associated with better responses to different stressors, including less aggression and drinking when experiencing stress.⁷

Why is this the case? While no one knows for sure, some researchers speculate that by using more detailed language in their self-talk, people are giving themselves more information about the situation. This explanation suggests that people are perhaps then able to act on this information more clearly when deciding what to do next.⁷

Putting this in practice: the RULER program

The RULER Feeling Words K-8 curriculum puts these suggestions into practice using feeling-based units to teach students how to recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate their emotions.⁸

Fifth and 6^th grade students in classrooms with the RULER Feeling Words curriculum demonstrated improved language arts grades and work habits grades as compared to students in classrooms that did not implement this curriculum. Students in this program also showed higher teacher ratings related to positive relationships, leadership, and studying, as well as lower teacher ratings of problem behaviors. This research suggests that social and emotional curriculum can go hand in hand with educational goals.

Looking beyond Western culture

When moving research from psychological theory into practice, it also may be important to consider students’ cultural backgrounds. Much of the research featured here has emerged from Western frameworks about emotion and research with Western participants. However, some cross-cultural work suggests that, on average, East Asians may rely on less body-driven processes for understanding their emotions,⁹ with different implications for what regulation strategies may then be effective. In an era where classrooms are looking increasingly diverse, it may be important to seek a better understanding of how people from many cultures experience and regulate emotions.

Pass it on 

How can children get better at regulating their emotions and behaving in ways that support their goals, particularly when faced with frustration, stress, or temptation? This complex question about human development is far from resolved. However, educators have opportunities to share strategies that may help students get themselves through difficult moments—and these self-talk strategies may be among them!

* Previously, I’ve written about EF as an umbrella term for cognitive processes that regulate thoughts and actions. In this case, researchers studied children’s ability to switch between tasks, hold information in memory, and inhibit their responses.

References

1. Kelly, A. C., Zuroff, D. C., & Shapira, L. B. (2009). Soothing oneself and resisting self-attacks: The treatment of two intrapersonal deficits in depression vulnerability. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 33(3), 301–313. [Paper]
2. Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., Bremner, R., Moser, J., Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: how you do it matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–24. [Paper]
3. White, R. E., & Carlson, S. M. (2015). What would Batman do? Self-distancing improves executive function in young children. Developmental Science, 3, 419–426. [Paper]
4. White, R. E., Kross, E., & Duckworth, A. L. (2015). Spontaneous Self-Distancing and Adaptive Self-Reflection Across Adolescence. Child Development, 86(4), 1272–1281. [Paper]
5. Niles, A. N., Craske, M. G., Lieberman, M. D., & Hur, C. (2015). Affect labeling enhances exposure effectiveness for public speaking anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 68, 27–36. [Paper]
6. Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting Feelings into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428. [Paper]
7. Kashdan, T. B., Barrett, L. F., & McKnight, P. E. (2015). Unpacking Emotion Differentiation: Transforming Unpleasant Experience by Perceiving Distinctions in Negativity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), 10–16. [Paper]
8. Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E., Reyes, M. R., & Salovey, P. (2012). Enhancing academic performance and social and emotional competence with the RULER feeling words curriculum. Learning and Individual Differences, 22(2), 218–224. [Paper]
9. Immordino-Yang, M. H., Yang, X.-F., & Damasio, H. (2014). Correlations between social-emotional feelings and anterior insula activity are independent from visceral states but influenced by culture. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8(September), 728. [Paper]

Dr. Sara Lazar began a yoga and mindfulness practice after a sports injury in the 1990s. Mindfulness – a practice rooted in Eastern philosophy of tuning into the body, mind, and environment – is quickly gaining credibility in the research world. Dr. Lazar has published several papers on the effects of mindfulness meditation on the brain, body, and wellbeing and is currently leading two studies in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. I recently had the opportunity to speak with her about the history and future of mindfulness meditation in scientific research and its reach into classrooms.

Deshpande: What benefits can meditation have on the brain and wellbeing?

Lazar: Meditation practice is associated with changes in brain structure. Some of these changes are correlated with positive benefits.

Two structural changes in the brain are actually associated with decreased stress and increased wellbeing.  In other words, it’s not just self-reported measures – it’s that there is brain change (seen with magnetic resonance imaging) behind self-reports of lower stress, emotion-regulation, and greater wellbeing.

Research also suggests a preservation effect of brain structure and function with normal aging.  Our first data showed the brain structure was preserved with aging,¹ and newer research supports that meditation may help preserve function.² We also see increases in the hippocampus and in memory and more.

Deshpande: Can children and adolescents benefit from mindfulness practice in schools?

Lazar: There’s quite a bit of research on this actually, and the data is pretty clear. Mindfulness practice has a positive impact on stress and emotional regulation in children, teens, and young adults.

As a mother, I can tell you that stress in school these days is much higher than when I was in school. Drugs are being prescribed in record numbers. So from a stress-reduction standpoint, mindfulness practice would be highly beneficial for students.

There is also growing literature that mindfulness meditation can enhance various cognitive skills, which I think should be thought of as a secondary benefit. To me, the primary goal should be stress reduction and emotion regulation, rather than using meditation to try to achieve some goal, which will just create more stress. Plus, it might defeat the purpose.

There should not be pressure to meditate ever for any reason.  Children should enjoy the benefits of reduced stress so then they may actually choose to start practicing on their own and perhaps maintain a regular practice. With more pressure for a certain outcome, they’ll likely see it as a chore and stop doing it.  It’s basically just mental exercise. You really just want them to start practicing for themselves and like the experience. Mindfulness practice that has been incentivized by promising cognitive benefits likely won’t be as rewarding, at least probably not for the long-term.

Deshpande: Do you have any reflections on existing mindfulness research or curriculum for the classroom?

Not being a teacher, I don’t know that I can make a formal recommendation for what’s useful or feasible for a particular classroom. What I’ve heard is that teachers like to offer mindfulness practice at the beginning of class for a minute or two to help students get settled.

I would say that it’s important to not to make it a forced thing no matter when it’s offered. Hopefully teachers and curriculum developers will figure out ways to make it a natural and effective offer. I don’t have the formula yet. And it might not be for everyone. Not everyone takes to it.  For example, children who may not want to participate in morning practice could sit and doodle. For some kids, it might not take it right away but then they might start liking it at some later time. If there’s a way to make it available to students but not necessarily mandate it, it may be more likely that these practices would be used as tools for self-management.

Deshpande: Do you engage in a personal mindfulness practice?

Lazar: Yes. My practice is highly erratic. Some days it’s 40 minutes, and other days it may be 5 minutes. It also goes through phases; sometimes more, sometimes less. My meditation practice varies tremendously.

Deshpande: How did you first become interested mindfulness meditation practice?

Lazar: A sports injury brought me to yoga in ‘94. The yoga teacher included five or ten minutes of mindfulness at the end of class, and I gradually switched over. Eventually I began practicing Vipassana, an insight meditation.

I started to go on retreats, and that deepened my practice in a lot of interesting ways. It made me practice more regularly than before and my metta practice – openness and loving kindness toward others- got deeper over time. I’d usually go on a one-week retreat about once a year here in Massachusetts. A few times, I went on a two-week retreat. By two weeks in, you’re really able to be more settled. It’s nice to have that second week.

Deshpande: Any personal reflections for people new to or considering a mindfulness practice?

Lazar: I was so nervous on my first retreat. I had done some regular daily practice for a few years and a few one-day retreats that helped prepare me.  I was just so nervous to practice all day for a whole week. But it completely changed my world. You get a to a place you might not normally know. Quiet, very quiet. And very centered. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a wonderful experience.

—–

Traditional mindful practice was intended to alleviate our human suffering. As Dr. Lazar emphasizes, today’s research supports mindfulness meditation, body scan, mindful breathing, walking, and more as tools for emotion regulation and stress reduction both in child and adult populations.

While more research is needed to determine mindfulness’s effect on student performance in academics, I agree with Sara: mindfulness practice ideally should retain a primary purpose of psychological and physiological relief for students and teachers. In high stakes testing environments, mindfulness as a tool for stress alleviation – quieting the mind – would organically support a secondary purpose of enhanced focus and school performance.

Looking for more mindfulness resources?  

• MARC: The Mindful Attention Research Center (MARC) at UCLA offers some of the latest research and curricular resources for schools. Influential mindfulness researchers, like Dr. Lisa Flook, study the effects of Mindful Awareness Practices for pre-K through college classrooms.

• 
MindUp: The Hawn Foundation enlisted educators and scientists to design this 15-lesson mindful awareness program. Accredited by CASEL, MindUp blends neuroscience research in executive functioning – self-regulation and more – with academic learning standards.

• Yoga Ed: This program is more based in yoga movement (asana) than in seated meditation. It offers classroom practices that also align with national standards.

References & Further Reading

1. Lazar, S. W., Kerr, C. E., Wasserman, R. H., Gray, J. R., Greve, D. N., Treadway, M. T., . . . Fischl, B. (2005). Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. NeuroReport,16(17), 1893-1897. [Article]
2. Gard, T., Taquet, M., Dixit, R., Hölzel, B., De Montjoye, Y., Brach, N., . . . Lazar, S. (2014). Fluid intelligence and brain functional organization in aging yoga and meditation practitioners. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience [Article]