Helen Neville

Children from low socioeconomic backgrounds often begin formal schooling at greater risk for negative social and academic outcomes. In recent years, researchers have identified children's early development of attention skills as an important indicator of later school success. For example, recent research has shown that attention skills such as working memory and selective attention are related to children's language and literacy skills. This research team developed an evidence-based interven...

Children in poverty are at risk for school failure, which leads to negative long-term consequences both for them and for society. There is a strong need for evidence-based educational programs to ameliorate socioeconomic status disparities in academic achievement. Researchers have developed an intervention, Parents and Children Making Connections-Attention (PCMC-A), based on research on the development and neuroplasticity of attention as well as parenting and family dynamics. Research has sh...

Over the past several decades, cognitive science researchers have made considerable progress in understanding how people learn. However, this research has very rarely guided development of educational curricula or interventions. This project, based on research regarding what affects young children's ability to maintain attention despite distractions, aims to develop and assess methods to improve attentional focus in preschoolers who are at high risk for school failure. Initial studies sugg...