Tag: Learning Disorders

Several studies have suggested that intensive musical training enhances children’s linguistic skills. Such training, however, is not available to all children. Researchers at Cognitive Brain Research Unit in the University of Helsinki studied in a community setting whether a low-cost, weekly music playschool provided to 5-6-year-old children in kindergartens affects their linguistic abilities. The children

Spending more years in full time education is associated with a greater risk of developing short-sightedness (myopia), finds a study published by The BMJ today. The researchers say their study provides “strong evidence” that more time spent in education is a risk factor for myopia, and that the findings “have important implications for educational practices.”

Hiding in plain sight, new research shines a spotlight on the placenta’s critical role in the nature versus nurture debate and how it confers risk for schizophrenia and likely other neurodevelopmental disorders including ADHD, autism, and Tourette syndrome. This new scientific frontier, with far-reaching implications for maternal and child health, creates the possibility that scientists

Sorry, new moms and dads — even though your infants really do appreciate your squeaky coos, they would prefer to hear sounds from their peers — other babies. Even at the pre-babbling stage — before they can form sounds resembling syllables like “ba ba ba” — infants recognize vowel-like sounds, but they tend to dwell

In sociological studies of people’s economic stratification and intergenerational mobility, researchers have long presumed a person’s occupation most accurately would reflect his or her lifetime earnings. “Even though there is a strong assumption, it was really difficult to test whether that was actually true or not,” said ChangHwan Kim, a KU professor of sociology. In

Neuroscience has studied music for decades, and it has been found to activate both the cortical and deeper brain areas. Neuroscience of dance, instead, is a young but quickly growing field. In her doctoral dissertation, Master of Science Hanna Poikonen developed methods for understanding the processes that dance generates in the cortex at the Cognitive

In education circles, it is widely accepted that minorities are overrepresented in special education. New research from the University of Kansas has found, in terms of autism, minorities are widely underrepresented in special education. The underrepresentation varies widely from state to state and shows that students from all backgrounds are not being identified accurately, resulting

Class clowns’ off-task antics amuse and delight their classmates during first and second grades, making them the most sought-after playmates on the playground in early elementary school. But by the time these mischievous boys are promoted to third grade, they plummet to the bottom of the social circle as classmates’ disapproval of their behavior grows,

Autism is challenging to diagnose, especially early in life. A new study in the journal Scientific Reports shows that inexpensive EEGs, which measure brain electrical activity, accurately predict or rule out autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in infants, even in some as young as 3 months. “EEGs are low-cost, non-invasive and relatively easy to incorporate into

The cerebral neocortex is responsible for higher brain functions, such as conscious thought and language, in humans. In the neocortex, neurons are precisely arranged in an ordered 6-layered structure. This neocortical structure is formed by the sequential generation of billions of neurons and their migration toward the brain surface in the fetal period. “Subplate neurons”

Evidence suggests that developing cooking and food preparation skills is important for health and nutrition, yet the practice of home cooking is declining and now rarely taught in school. A new study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior found that developing cooking skills as a young adult may have long-term benefits for

In the early days of neuroscience research, scientists painstakingly stained brain cells and drew by hand what they saw in a microscope. Fast forward to 2018 and machines may be able to learn how to do that work. According to a new study in Cell, it may be possible to teach machines how to pick