Enhancing Cognitive and Social–Emotional Development Through a Simple-to-Administer Mindfulness-Based School Program for Elementary School Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial

By K. Schonert-Reichl, Eva Oberle, M. S. Lawlor, D. Abbott, K. Thomson, T. Oberlander, A. Diamond. Developmental Psychology, 2015

788 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The authors hypothesized that a social and emotional learning (SEL) program involving mindfulness and caring for others, designed for elementary school students, would enhance cognitive control, reduce stress, promote well-being and prosociality, and produce positive school outcomes. To test this hypothesis, 4 classes of combined 4th and 5th graders (N = 99) were randomly assigned to receive the SEL with mindfulness program versus a regular social responsibility program. Measures assessed executive functions (EFs), stress physiology via salivary cortisol, well-being (self-reports), prosociality and peer acceptance (peer reports), and math grades. Relative to children in the social responsibility program, children who received the SEL program with mindfulness (a) improved more in their cognitive control and stress physiology; (b) reported greater empathy, perspective-taking, emotional control, optimism, school self-concept, and mindfulness, (c) showed greater decreases in self-reported symptoms of depression and peer-rated aggression, (d) were rated by peers as more prosocial, and (e) increased in peer acceptance (or sociometric popularity). The results of this investigation suggest the promise of this SEL intervention and address a lacuna in the scientific literature—identifying strategies not only to ameliorate children's problems but also to cultivate their well-being and thriving. Directions for future research are discussed.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a060c22dea713cc4ac1abfdc4a109b947ce3deb5

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Citations in the corpus

RULER: A Theory-Driven, Systemic Approach to Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning (2019, background): “…are clear, high-quality implementation is a challenge for many schools because of a reported lack of financial resources to support SEL programing, a paucity of time to dedicate to its infusion and instruction, and insufficient preservice training for educators (e.g., Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015).”
Two-Year Impact of a Mindfulness-Based Program on Preschoolers’ Self-Regulation and Academic Performance (2016, methodology): “All previous studies of the efficacy of MindUP have included students in Grades 4 and up (Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010; Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015).”
Mindfulness interventions in schools: Integrity and feasibility of implementation (2020, background): “…Jin, Bear, & Lau, 2016; Metz et al., 2013), MiSP program (Johnson et al., 2016, 2017; Kuyken et al., 2013; Sanger, Thierry, & Dorjee, 2018), MindUP (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015), Integrative Contemplative Pedagogy (Britton et al., 2014), Group Mindfulness Therapy (Crowley et al., 2018), and…”
A Mindfulness-Based Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum for School-Aged Children: The MindUP Program (2016, positive): “The ﬁ ndings that MindUP participants were sig-niﬁ cantly more proﬁ cient at objective EF tasks than controls (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015 ) lend further support to this theory.”
Ethnic Diversity and Inclusive School Environments (2019, background): “In addition to being associated with increases in empathy and perspective taking, mindfulness-focused programs may also provide benefits in terms of academic motivation and achievement (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015; see also Durlak et al., 2011).”
Advancements in the Landscape of Social and Emotional Learning and Emerging Topics on the Horizon (2019, methodology): “In a randomized controlled trial of the MindUP program (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015), four classes of early adolescents (in combined fourth and fifth graders, N ¼ 99) were randomly assigned to receive the MindUP program versus the regular social responsibility school program.”
Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Attention and Executive Function in Children and Adolescents—a Systematic Review (2017, methodology): “Children were instructed to press the key on the side of the keyboard that represented the direction in which the middle fish was facing, ignoring the two distractor fish on either side of the middle (target) fish.”
Mindfulness Interventions. (2017, positive): “…is the development of adapted mindfulness interventions for children, and some initial evidence indicates that classroom mindfulness interventions reduce stress, reduce aggressive behavior, and improve cognitive performance (Flook et al. 2015, Schonert-Reichl et al. 2015, Zenner et al. 2013).”