learning | SPSP

Can a Brief Pause Get in the Way of Toddler Learning?

Teacher and toddler doing therapy using emoji emotions

The ability of toddlers to learn new words may be affected by how often their interactions with parents and other caregivers are interrupted by modern technology.

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The Development of Own-Race Advantage in Infants and Children Reflects a Natural Outcome of Perceptual Learning

Illustration of children's faces drawn in a child's art style

People are remarkable at processing human faces. In a split second, one can recognize a person’s gender, race, or emotions. However, this expertise only works when the faces belong to one’s own racial group. Known as the own-race advantage (ORA), this psycholgical limitation affects people of all colors. People are notoriously bad at distinguishing between members of unfamiliar racial groups. Scientists have reliably demonstrated the ORA effect across different ethnic groups and with various experimental paradigms.

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Growth Mindset Interventions Yield Impressive Results

Image of test scantron sheet filled out and marked up with red text "A+" on it

A growth mindset is the belief that intellectual abilities are not fixed, but can be developed. Do students who are taught a growth mindset earn higher grades and test scores?

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How We Form Habits and Change Existing Ones

Much of our daily lives are taken up by habits that we've formed over our lifetime. An important characteristic of a habit is that it's automatic-- we don't always recognize habits in our own behavior. Studies show that about 40 percent of people's daily activities are performed each day in almost the same situations. Habits emerge through associative learning. "We find patterns of behavior that allow us to reach goals.

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