Improve Children’s Academic Performance with Mindfulness

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Mindfulness is having a real impact on our students and their ability to focus on the moment, whether in music, sports, exams or just dealing with the pressures of everyday life.” – Jeanette Richardson

 

Childhood is a wonderful time during which the child is dynamically absorbing information from every aspect of its environment. This occurs almost without any intervention from adults as the child appears to be programmed to learn. It is here that behaviors, knowledge, skills, and attitudes are developed that shape the individual. But, what is absorbed depends on the environment. Elementary school is an environment that has a huge effect on development. It is also an excellent time teach children the skills that will insure that the child has the ability to adaptively negotiate its environment.

 

Mindfulness training in school, at all levels has been shown to have very positive effects. These include the academic, cognitive, psychological, and social domains. Importantly, mindfulness training in school appears to improve the student’s self-concept, attention, and cognitive performance and lowers stress responses.  Since, what occurs in these early years and in school can have such a profound, long-term effect on the child it is important to further study the impact of mindfulness training on the academic performance of elementary school children.

 

In today’s Research News article “Enhancing Visual Perception and Motor Accuracy among School Children through a Mindfulness and Compassion Program.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00281/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w9-2017

Tarrasch and colleagues recruited 4^th and 5^th grade students and assigned them to either a wait-list control condition or to receive mindfulness and compassion training in 24 weekly sessions of 45 minutes. Before and after the program the students were measured for visual performance, motor accuracy, visual-motor integration, anxiety, and mindfulness.

 

They found that the mindfulness and compassion training in comparison to the wait-list control resulted in significant improvements in visual performance, motor accuracy, and mindfulness, and significant reductions in anxiety. Since, motor accuracy and visual performances are fundamental to academic performance, these results suggest that mindfulness and compassion training strengthens abilities that underlie success in school. In addition, the reduction in anxiety levels, suggests that the training removes one of the impediments to academic performance. Finally, the improvement in mindfulness suggests that mindfulness and compassion training helps the students to become more aware of their present feelings and environment.

 

It is possible, but not examined, that the improvements in mindfulness are responsible for the improvements in motor accuracy and visual performance as real time attention to the task at hand is fundamental to performance of these skills and performance in school overall. Regardless, the results suggest that mindfulness and compassion training improves the students’ ability to thrive in school, improving both ability and emotional tone. The investment of 45 minutes once a week in mindfulness training appears to be well justified and possibly should be considered for inclusion in the standard school curriculum.

 

So, improve children’s academic performance with mindfulness.

 

“Studies find that youth benefit from learning mindfulness in terms of improved cognitive outcomes, social-emotional skills, and well being. In turn, such benefits may lead to long-term improvements in life. For example, social skills in kindergarten predict improved education, employment, crime, substance abuse and mental health outcomes in adulthood.” – Mindful Schools

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

Tarrasch R, Margalit-Shalom L and Berger R (2017) Enhancing Visual Perception and Motor Accuracy among School Children through a Mindfulness and Compassion Program. Front. Psychol. 8:281. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00281

 

The present study assessed the effects of the mindfulness/compassion cultivating program: “Call to Care-Israel” on the performance in visual perception (VP) and motor accuracy, as well as on anxiety levels and self-reported mindfulness among 4th and 5th grade students. One hundred and thirty-eight children participated in the program for 24 weekly sessions, while 78 children served as controls. Repeated measures ANOVA’s yielded significant interactions between time of measurement and group for VP, motor accuracy, reported mindfulness, and anxiety. Post hoc tests revealed significant improvements in the four aforementioned measures in the experimental group only. In addition, significant correlations were obtained between the improvement in motor accuracy and the reduction in anxiety and the increase in mindfulness. Since VP and motor accuracy are basic skills associated with quantifiable academic characteristics, such as reading and mathematical abilities, the results may suggest that mindfulness practice has the ability to improve academic achievements.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00281/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w9-2017