Mindfulness Training Enhances Students' Executive Functioning and Social Emotional Skills.
Applied developmental science January 1, 2025 Lisa Flook, Matthew J. Hirshberg, Lori Gustafson et al. 20 citations
Fifth graders who completed an 8-week school-based mindfulness training showed significant improvements on a computerized measure of cognitive flexibility and received higher end-of-year social-emotional learning grades compared to a wait-list control group, after accounting for prior-year grades. The 292 students from 21 classrooms were randomly assigned to either the mindfulness program or a control condition. Teacher-rated social-emotional competence did not differ between groups. The results suggest that a brief mindfulness intervention can bolster cognitive and social-emotional skills during the transitional pre-adolescent period.