Toward Realizing the Promise of Educational Neuroscience: Improving Experimental Design in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Studies

Abstract

This review presents a critical appraisal of high-quality studies in the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, focusing on design issues that are critical for establishing effective educational neuroscience. I argue that cognitive neuroscience studies of cognitive development need to respect important experimental constraints. The use of longitudinal and intervention designs is key. The field needs to move beyond simply studying patterns of brain activation to studying brain mechanisms of information encoding and information processing. Indeed, studies at multiple levels of description are required, combining the assessment of individual differences in neural learning, sensory processing, cognitive processing, and children's behavior. Current evidence suggests that the child brain has essentially the same structures as the adult brain, carrying out essentially the same functions via the same mechanisms. This review demonstrates that neural systems that learn the patterns or regularities in environmental input (via statistical learning) can, in principle, acquire complex cognitive structures like language and conceptual knowledge.