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.