Syeda Nizami (@sniz77) is currently a junior doing BAs in English and Psychology at UMass Lowell, and working as a research assistant on several projects while planning a career in Law and Psychology.

Inequity is rampant in America, with children in low-income households starting at a disadvantage and falling further behind throughout their schooling. Nova’s School of the Future Segment highlights how research and technology can help close the achievement gap and create a more individualized and engaged education experience. In this blog post, I summarize some of the highlights and provide references for those who are interested in exploring the research more thoroughly. You can also watch the 2-hour segment at this link, but you won’t find any journal references in the program itself!

Pre-school: Improving Selective Attention [9:20-19:28]

First, we begin with pre-schools, where children need the following skills to become successful learners: concentration, focus, and self-regulation. At the University of Oregon, Eric Pakulak conducted a study with 141 children enrolled in the Head Start program (1). His research team assessed the effectiveness of a family training program to help preschoolers with selective attention. They measured brain functions associated with selective attention through EEGs, parental reports of children’s behavior, and standard measures of cognition. The results indicated that the eight-week program helped children improve on all three measures – especially on the parents’ reports and the standardized measures. Furthermore, parents also reported that their children had improved social skills and less frequent problem behaviors after the intervention. This study shows the crucial importance of working with parents in order to improve their child’s school readiness and skills, as well as how working with children and especially parents only over the course of eight weeks can reap significant benefits.