Abstract
An initial evaluation of the utility of designing an intervention to address neuroscience-based subtyping of children who have conduct problems was undertaken in this pilot study. Drawing on the literature on callous–unemotional traits, a novel intervention programme, ‘Let's Get Smart’, was implemented in a school for children with social emotional and behavioural difficulties. A mixed-methods design was used to investigate the perspectives of staff participant-observers in the change process, alongside standardised scores on measures of pupil performance and behaviour. Both qualitative and quantitative results showed reductions in externalising behaviour and improvements in measures of hypothesised underlying cognitive and affective processes. While externalising behaviour improved across subtypes, associated changes in underlying processes differed by subtype, supporting the potential value of neuroscience-informed contributions to intervention planning.
Highlights
There is great interest among teachers in the potential of neuroscience to enhance educational practice (Goswami 2006; Pickering and Howard-Jones 2007), but considerable debate about the extent to which this potential can be realised (Varma et al 2008)
There were three main themes: the identification of a new focus on pupil needs, the evaluation of changes in strategies used by staff with the children and the evaluation of broader practice changes, including teamworking
Following preliminary assumption checking which established the suitability of the data for parametric statistical analyses, each of the research questions was investigated in turn
Summary
There is great interest among teachers in the potential of neuroscience to enhance educational practice (Goswami 2006; Pickering and Howard-Jones 2007), but considerable debate about the extent to which this potential can be realised (Varma et al 2008). Obstacles identified by Varma et al (2008) range from the conceptual to the pragmatic. The last of these concerns, that application to education may be premature given the present level of knowledge about the brain, has not prevented the burgeoning of ‘neuromyths’ in education (see Geake 2008). Some of these incorrect beliefs about the brain are widely held by teachers (Pickering and Howard-Jones 2007). Neither is there evidence that teaching to preferred learning styles as such is beneficial (Krätzig and Arbuthnott 2006), there may be incidental beneficial features such as the production of more varied learning materials, with broad appeal and likelihood of engaging a range of students
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