Pages: 6

School psychologists support students' school experiences both directly, through assessment and intervention, and indirectly, through systems-level work, consultation with teachers and parents, and connections with families and communities. Although other facets of school psychology are important for practice, cognitive neuroscience provides foundational principles which can inform effective clinical practice. School psychologists have largely been missing from the translation of neuroscience to education, even though school psychologists have knowledge and skills that are useful in supporting accurate translation of this information into practice, helping to minimize educational neuromyths. School psychologists can support teachers in understanding the role of neuroscience in education and the limits of what neuroscience can offer. De Smedt and Grabner noted three ways that neuroscience can inform education which they described as neurounderstanding, neuroprediction, and neurointervention.

Pages: 23

The most basic parts of the brain are its cells. First is the neuron. The other main cell type is glial cells, which outnumber neurons. Put simply, glia perform supportive functions essential for neurons including guiding axons to create circuits, promoting synapse development, taking up extra neurotransmitters left over in the synapse, and protecting the brain from infection. Functional MRI, or fMRI, has become a prominent tool in the study of development and mental illness in children and adolescents. Fundamentally, fMRI detects changes in blood flow, thus requiring the use of carefully designed neurobehavioral paradigms to generate activation signals and perturb the resting neuronal circuitry. To create the complexity of functions executed by the brain requires the development of incredibly intricate circuits. Genetics and the environment, and their interplay, play key roles in how circuits are created and developed over time. What defines a circuit can vary in the literature and to date there has not been a final consensus.

Pages: 11

This chapter covers the basic timeline of typical neurobiological development and the four basic principles of brain development during childhood and adolescence. These principles are: brain development is not linear or uniform; the brain gets more connected and specialized over time; the balance in functioning between brain regions changes over time, which in turn affects behavior; and brain development is a double-edged sword, whereby plasticity supports brain development but also makes it more vulnerable. The chapter provides overview of brain development in the early stages. A person can have a rich research career studying this time frame alone; as such, this chapter covers only the basics. This time frame (birth to three years old) can be broken down into key steps of neurulation, proliferation, cell migration, differentiation, synaptogenesis and synaptic pruning, and myelination.

Pages: 38

One general challenge in the field of psychology is that we deal in constructs, which by their nature are abstract ideas that we try to define and measure. But they are actually very difficult to define and measure, leaving clinicians with an uncomfortable and messy place in which to work. This chapter highlights some of the areas where we actually do not know as much as we think we know, such as reasoning and executive functioning and aims to summarize what the authors do know and provide information to support practice within the understanding that their fields still have work to do to fully comprehend these areas. In early development, learning to feed oneself or put a puzzle together requires both complex motor and executive functioning to successfully complete the tasks, and success with these tasks supports later academic and social learning. Background knowledge is also necessary for learning, memory, and metacognition.

Pages: 28

While other species certainly communicate, language is a skill unique to humans that has contributed significantly to the achievements of humankind. Humans are wired for language as evidenced by our innate sensitivity to linguistic rules, learning language with no instruction, and generatively applying language rules; this is sometimes referred to as the nativist view. An adequate language environment is imperative for early language development. While receptive and expressive language are highly related, they have somewhat different trajectories. Pragmatic language skills are related to several cognitive domains including language proficiency, vocabulary, grammar, theory of mind, and executive functioning. There is limited information about how to support children in gaining grammar skills in spoken language. This is likely due to the understanding that there is a universal grammar that all children innately have.

Pages: 48

While reading is often a contentious area in both research and practice, reading is a foundational skill that provides students with access to other learning and to additional opportunities after graduating from high school. The National Reading Panel identified the Big Five in Reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The Big Five in reading influenced the organization of this chapter. Limited teacher training in reading increases the importance for school psychologists to understand reading, so they can support teachers in providing effective, evidence-based instruction and support students in their classrooms. Positive mental health outcomes are related to strong reading skills and reading enjoyment. Reading development includes language skills, print awareness, narrative skills, and print motivation. Phonemic awareness is required to connect graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds) and aids in breaking the code of reading both real and pseudowords.

Pages: 25

The writing brain is actually organized differently than the reading brain. Interestingly, when separating low- and high-achieving writers, low-achieving writers with high self-efficacy in conventions reported using fewer revision strategies, suggesting the need for differentiated instruction for both high- and low-achieving students in the area of written expression. Fine motor skills are an important component of early writing development and predict later academic achievement due to their relationship between motor ability and more complex cognitive functions; writing is an example of a task that combines motor and complex cognitive skills Developing foundational skills in handwriting, as well as spelling, is important for later development of composition skills because automaticity of these basic skills frees up working memory space for the cognitive demands of composition. Transcription is the process of translating language into written symbols in order to communicate ideas and requires both handwriting and spelling skills.

Pages: 32

Math skills are important for many aspects of daily living from doubling a recipe to creating a budget to measuring for new curtains to figuring out the sale price of an item. Yet, almost three quarters of adults struggle with basic math skills, such as determining miles per gallon, and over half cannot calculate a 10% tip. Early math development is influenced by multiple factors including language ability, home environment, executive functioning skills, and both informal and formal mathematics. Informal and formal mathematics instruction are defined by type of activity. Part-whole relationship is the understanding that bigger numbers can be broken down into smaller numbers or combined to create even larger numbers and is important for understanding time, money, and fractions. Specific brain areas utilized in solving math word problems has not been studied, but it definitely recruits brain areas for reading and for math problem-solving and computation.

Pages: 11

This chapter reviews the diagnostic criteria for learning disabilities, remediation for learning disabilities, and how understanding the neuroscience behind learning disability can better support academic and mental health outcomes for children. There is also not a consensus in the research as to the definition of specific learning disabilities (SLDs) or how to assess for SLDs, which makes differential diagnosis challenging. Case conceptualization supports interpretation to inform interventions, and neuropsychological foundations can inform our conceptualizations of student difficulties because learning disabilities have known neurological underpinnings. Strategy instruction is an approach to supporting learning that is effective for a range of students and subject areas. Teachers do not feel prepared to teach students with learning disabilities despite the prevalence of these students in their classrooms; consequently, it is imperative that school psychologists be prepared to support both teachers and students with learning disabilities through consultation, assessment, and intervention.

Pages: 28

Social and emotional development is foundational for relationships in schools, which, in turn, prepares students for relationships both in and outside the workplace, making it an important aspect of preparing students to be contributing, healthy, and productive citizens. Social and emotional learning (SEL) includes the process of gaining and using skills to recognize and effectively manage emotions and to interact with others, which provides a foundation for positive social behaviors, strong academic performance, and mental health. In focusing on relationships and the social aspects of development, the importance of time spent alone, which is often necessary to foster self-awareness and identity development, has often been overlooked in education and in examining both SEL and mental health. Self-management is the ability to manage emotions and related thoughts and behaviors to achieve one's goals and includes using stress management strategies, taking initiative, and demonstrating self-discipline.

Pages: 53

This chapter provides a brief overview of the cognitive neuroscience and school implications of common disorders that school psychologists are likely to see in their practice. The disorders presented in this chapter often have overlapping academic, behavioral, functional, and cognitive features that present co-morbidly and effect overall development and growth. In childhood, interventions should focus on gaining skills and strategies for success, while in later adolescence, they should focus on transition supports. While epilepsy, pediatric stroke, and cerebral palsy are not officially NDDs, they have neurodevelopmental outcomes that school psychologists should be aware of. These disorders can all impact a variety of brain areas, and individual implications should be considered within brain circuits rather that focal brain areas. Children who had experienced stroke during childhood demonstrated less well-developed visuospatial, short-term memory, and processing skills.

Pages: 27

The speed of technological advances has increased exponentially. Technology has evolved, and the attention-grabbing nature of technology is now designed to create a “self-evolving ‘attraction mechanism” designed to pull users away from other information in their immediate environment and keep them engaged in the online platforms by providing a variable interval schedule of reinforcement, which has increased our habitual checking behaviors. Learning and memory are effortful processes, so having access to information without expending effort is appealing. Students struggle to use technology for academic skill and acquisition and tend to give up if they do not find information quickly and easily. Handwriting skills are correlated with academic achievement in reading and math in children, even into university, and note-taking by hand results in greater conceptual understanding than taking notes on a laptop.