Brain development

Genes Several genes have been implicated in Alzheimer's, but the big one is the e4 allele of the ApoE gene (on chromosome 19). This variant is found in about a quarter of the population. Having it doesn't mean you are foreordained to develop Alzheimer's, but it certainly increases the risk substantially. The risk goes up considerably more if both of your genes are the e4 variant (remember you...
Articles
Children’s understanding, and their use of memory and learning strategies, is a considerably more complex situation than most of us realize. To get some feeling for this complexity, let’s start by looking at a specific area of knowledge: mathematics. Children's math understanding Here’s a math problem: Pete has 3 apples. Ann also has some apples. Pete and Ann have 9...
Articles
Alzheimer's disease currently affects one in 10 people over age 65 and nearly half of those over age 85. More than 19 million Americans say they have a family member with the disease, and 37 million say they know somebody affected with Alzheimer's. In the United States, the average lifetime cost per Alzheimer patient is US$174,000. (These figures are from the U.S. Alzheimer's Association).
Articles
The role of melody in helping recall The most obvious connection between language and music is that music can be used to help us remember words. It has been convincingly shown that words are better recalled when they are learned as a song rather than speech - in particular conditions.
Articles
Montessori education
Articles
Stimulating activities
Articles
The Suggested Benefits of Homework The most obvious presumed benefit of homework is, of course, that it will improve students' understanding and retention of the material covered. However, partly because this (most measurable) benefit has not been consistently demonstrated, it has also been assumed that homework has less direct benefits:
Articles
Introduction
Articles
Most cognitive processes decline with age It does appear that most component processes of cognition decline with advanced age if the difficulty level is sufficiently high. For example, the following processes have all shown age effects:
Articles
Most people believe that an adult learner can't hope to replicate the fluency of someone who learned another language in childhood. And certainly there is research to support this. However, people tend to confuse these findings - that the age of acquisition affects your representation of grammar - with the idea that children can learn words vastly quicker than adults...
Articles