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Pedagogy - 09.09.2021

Helping children with autism and hyperlexia learn to understand what they read
Hyperlexia is a condition where preschool children display an intense early interest in letters in a way that is very advanced for their age. They can decode words accurately, but without understanding their meaning. It is most common among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) - with approximately 6-20% of children with autism demonstrating hyperlexia.

Pedagogy - Life Sciences - 30.08.2021

Brains are most amenable to reading development in the first two years of primary education
The regions that form the reading network in the brain mainly develop in the first two years of primary school. After that, the growth of these brain regions stabilises. This has been shown by a year-long study conducted by KU Leuven. Neurobiological differences in dyslexia are already present at pre-school age  The regions that form the reading network in the brain mainly develop in the first two years of primary school.

Pedagogy - 26.08.2021

Physical activity in children can be improved through ’exergames’
Physical activity among young people can be improved by well-designed and delivered online interventions such as 'exergames' and smartphone apps, new research shows. According to a review study carried out at the University of Birmingham, children and young people reacted positively in PE lessons to the use of exergames, which deliver physical activity lessons via games or personalised activities.

Pedagogy - Social Sciences - 20.08.2021

A parent’s genes can influence a child’s educational success, inherited or not
A child's educational success depends on the genes that they haven't inherited from their parents, as well as the genes they have, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the study confirms that genes a person inherits directly are most likely to contribute to their achievements in education.

Pedagogy - Health - 05.08.2021

Children with autism respond well to puppets
A new study by researchers at the Yale Child Study Center demonstrates that puppets can attract and hold the attention of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), raising the potential for developing more engaging therapies that strengthen social engagement and facilitate learning. The study, published in the journal Autism Research, is the first to test anecdotal evidence that children with ASD, like most youngsters, pay attention to puppets.

Health - Pedagogy - 02.08.2021

’Origami’ testing app could help tackle spread of malaria
A new approach to tackling the spread of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, which combines affordable, easy-to-administer blood tests with machine learning and unbreakable encryption, has generated encouraging early results in Uganda. Malaria is one of the world's leading causes of illness and death, sickening around 228 million people each year, more than 400,000 of them fatally.

Pedagogy - Social Sciences - 23.07.2021

Machine learning used to successfully measure attachment in children
For the first time, researchers have used machine learning to successfully measure attachment in children - the vital human bond that humans first develop as infants to their caregivers. In new multi-disciplinary research, led by the University of Glasgow and published in PLOS ONE, the study team present a quick and easy way to measure attachment through a computer game, that has the potential to be used in largescale public health monitoring.

Pedagogy - 22.07.2021

Older people are worse at learning to help themselves, but just as good at learning to help others
Older adults may be slower to learn actions and behaviours that benefit themselves, but new research shows they are just as capable as younger people of learning behaviours that benefit others. Researchers at the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford found that youngsters, in contrast, tend to learn much faster when they are making choices that benefit themselves.

Pedagogy - Social Sciences - 16.07.2021

Word gap: When money’s tight, parents talk less to kids
A new study suggests money worries prompt parents to talk less to their kids, exacerbating the "word gap.” (iStockphoto) Three decades ago, child development researchers found that low-income children heard tens of millions fewer words in their homes than their more affluent peers by the time they reached kindergarten.

Campus - Pedagogy - 08.07.2021

Understanding our perception of rhythm
Scientists have long known that while listening to a sequence of sounds, people often perceive a rhythm, even when the sounds are identical and equally spaced. One regularity that was discovered over 100 years ago is the Iambic-Trochaic Law : when every other sound is loud, we tend to hear groups of two sounds with an initial beat.

Pedagogy - 06.07.2021

Autistic children can benefit from attention training - new study
Attention training in young people with autism can lead to significant improvements in academic performance, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Birmingham in the UK along with institutions in São Paolo, in Brazil, tested a computer programme designed to train basic attention skills among a group of autistic children aged between eight and 14 years old.

Pedagogy - 18.06.2021

High-resolution microscope built from LEGO and bits of phone
Research led by Göttingen University shows constructing microscope improves children's understanding Microscopy is an essential tool in many fields of science and medicine. However, many groups have limited access to this technology due to its cost and fragility. Now, researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Münster have succeeded in building a high-resolution microscope using nothing more than children's plastic building bricks and affordable parts from a mobile phone.

Pedagogy - Mathematics - 02.06.2021

Digital school books help low-achieving pupils
Study on use of tablets in mathematics Low-achieving pupils benefit more in mathematics lessons from learning materials on tablet PCs than high-achieving children. They are obviously helped by individualized learning paths, immediate feedback and the hands-on processing of interactive content. This conclusion was reached in a study conducted by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) with sixth-grade students.

Campus - Pedagogy - 28.05.2021

National study of high school students’ digital skills paints worrying portrait, Stanford researchers say
Researchers charged 3,446 American students with vetting news stories and other digital content. Students tried, mostly in vain, to find truth. A new national study by Stanford researchers showing a woeful inability by high schoolers to detect fake news on the internet suggests an urgent need for schools to integrate new tools and curriculum into classrooms that boost students' digital skills, the study's authors say.

Pedagogy - Campus - 28.05.2021

Extra classroom time may do little to help pupils recover lost learning after COVID-19
Adding extra classroom time to the school day may only result in marginal gains for pupils who have lost learning during the COVID pandemic, a study says. Simply keeping all students in school for longer, in order to do more maths or more English, probably won't improve results much Vaughan Connolly The University of Cambridge analysis used five years of Government data, collected from more than 2,800 schools in England, to estimate the likely impact of additional classroom instruction on academic progress, as measured at GCSE.

Social Sciences - Pedagogy - 16.05.2021

Increased emotional difficulties in children during the pandemic
Whilst the rise in emotional problems in teenagers and young adults since the pandemic has become clearer, little is known about the emotional response of pre-school and primary school aged children. Using data tracking children's emotional development at multiple ages before and during the pandemic, the research team were able to explore differences in trajectories of emotional difficulties in children before and during the pandemic.

Pedagogy - 13.05.2021

Over a fifth of all child deaths in England could be avoided by reducing deprivation, new report finds
Around 700 child deaths that occur in England each year might be avoided by reducing deprivation, finds a new NHS England-funded report published today [13 May]. The University of Bristol National Child Mortality Database (NCMD)-led analysis identified a clear association between the risk of death and level of deprivation for children in England, for all categories of death except cancer.

Pedagogy - Social Sciences - 10.05.2021

New birth cohort study will study children of the 2020s
A new nationally representative birth cohort study launching in England in the coming year will deliver valuable insights into child development, led by UCL researchers and commissioned and funded by the Department for Education. The Children of the 2020s Study will include babies born in April, May, and June 2021.

Psychology - Pedagogy - 07.05.2021

Supporting mums’ mental health strengthens ’protective’ playmate role with children
Helping parents with depression or anxiety could also improve their ability to engage in potentially 'protective' forms of play with their children that can reduce the risk of behavioural problems, new research suggests. If there are two mothers who pretend play with the same frequency, but one has higher anxiety or depression level, the child of that parent will tend to engage in less pretend play Zhen Rao The finding comes from a granular analysis of 3,600 five-second clips, which researchers took from recordings of 60 mother-toddler pairs playing together.

Health - Pedagogy - 28.04.2021

New research plans confirmed on Bristol health study’s 30th birthday
Thirty years after it first started, the Children of the 90s health study - one of the largest, most detailed longitudinal birth cohorts in the world - announced today [28 April] that it will launch its biggest collection of health data yet on three generations of Bristol families in September. Children of the 90s data has been used in over 2,200 health studies around the world to date.