Monthly Archives: March 2017

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Autism Speaks…about Genes

Some time ago, I linked to an article about varieties of ADHD diagnoses. A recent article in Medical News Today makes a similar point about autism. From one perspective, we can be tempted to say that someone either does or



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Brain Wandering

We’ve posted quite frequently about mind-wandering on this blog (here, here, and here — to pick just a few). This post introduces a comprehensive article about the brain activity that correlates with various mind-wandering states. As John Leiff (M.D.) notes, when



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Early Education Program Evaluation: “Differential Susceptibility” to Success

Show me the Money As most parents, teachers, and education policy folks know well, early childhood education is expensive. Whether federally-funded, state-funded, or family-funded, preschool and structured early care generally operate on a pretty tight budget. They also generally operate



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The Misleading Headline of the Week…and What to Do About It

Scientific American Mind has entitled this brief piece “Too Much Emotional Intelligence is a Bad Thing.” Given the content of the article — and common sense — a more accurate title would be “In very particular circumstances, the ability to read



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Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-about-me World by Michele Borba

Children and adolescents with greater empathy tend to be happier, more successful, more resilient, and more critical in their thinking. Dr. Michele Borba, educational psychologist and psychology expert on several TV programs, argues in Unselfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in



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Political Affiliation and Trust in Science

Over at the Cultural Cognition Project, Dan Kahan has offered a fascinating post about the relationship between political beliefs and trust in science. As we all know, party affiliation strongly aligns with beliefs about human causation of climate change. Whereas — according



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Classroom Note Taking: A Solution to the Technology Conundrum?

[Editor’s note: this guest blogger piece is by Cindy Gadziala, Chairperson of Theology at Fontbonne Academy in Milton, MA.] I am a veteran teacher, and yet sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all that I am supposed to be doing in



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Using IQ Scores Thoughtfully

Debates about the meaning and value of IQ have long raged; doubtless, they will continue to do so. This article, by a scholar steeped in the field, argues that — even for those who see real benefit in focusing on



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Debate: E-Readers and Reading Comprehension

[Editor’s note: Scott’s post is in response to this earlier article.] Most times when I get asked about the e-reader debate, it is usually not a sincere question from a person who does not already hold a strong opinion on the



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Head Start: Right on Time

“Children who grow up in poverty often exhibit delays in academic and social-emotional school readiness that undermine their school progress at kindergarten entry and initiate a lifelong trajectory of underachievement and underemployment.”   What a powerful concept — a lifelong



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