Cognitive development
For many in our industry, packing up and clearing away the myriad of things, which children may have used in a play session, functions as a time where children are learning responsibility, cooperation and self-regulation. However, there are more opportunities for learning and development in packing up and clearing away than just these social/emotional domain […]
Epigenetics and transgenerational inheritance – the next developmental psychology breakthrough, or is it bunkum? Recent research proposes that what we experience in our lifetime can modify our DNA, and that these changes can be passed on to future generations. Whilst a lot of attention is on the human genome, it is apparent, at least to […]
The frequency of reading to children at a young age has been proven, by a study undertaken in 2013, by Guyonne Kalb and Jan C. van Ours, to be a directly causative factor on their learning outcomes, when they go on to school, irrespective of their family backgrounds and home environments. The research, the outcome […]
According to neuroscientists, the development of handwriting skills is a crucial part of a child’s development. Our brains are hard-wired to learn language, in both its written and spoken forms. However, as we depend more and more on communicating in text, via computers, mobile phones and iPads, some educators are questioning whether handwriting has a […]
ADHD is getting quite a run in NT&C’s blog posts. So far, we have looked at the role played by the mother’s diet during gestation and discussed the idea that the child with ADHD does not deliberately choose to behave as they do. This, the third on the topic of ADHD, looks at the seemingly […]
I haven’t got a musical bone in my body … how can I possibly help children develop their own musical creativity? In order to ascertain how the kinder teachers integrated music with other elements of their programs, lecturer in music at North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, Mignon van Vreden, has been exploring the teaching practices […]
1. A lot of brain architecture is shaped during the first three years after birth. However, despite a widespread belief to the contrary, the window of opportunity for brain development does not close on a child’s third birthday. While the regions of the brain dedicated to higher-order functions, which involve most social, emotional, and cognitive […]
A study, by scientists at West Chester University and the University of Delaware, which appeared in the journal Child Development and funded by the Research: Art Works program at the National Endowment for the Arts proposes that arts programs may help lower stress in economically disadvantaged pre-schoolers. Everyone should know, these days, that poverty can […]