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Music training has repeatedly been claimed to positively impact children’s cognitive skills and academic achievement (literacy and mathematics). This claim relies on the assumption that engaging in intellectually demanding activities fosters particular domain-general cognitive skills, or even general intelligence. The present meta-analytic review ( N = 6,984, k = 254, m = 54) shows that this belief is incorrect. Once the quality of study design is controlled for, the overall effect of music training programs is null ( g ¯ ≈ 0) and highly consistent across studies ( τ 2 ≈ 0). Results of Bayesian analyses employing distributional assumptions (informative priors) derived from previous research in cognitive training corroborate these conclusions. Small statistically significant overall effects are obtained only in those studies implementing no random allocation of participants and employing non-active controls ( g ¯ ≈ 0.200, p < .001). Interestingly, music training is ineffective regardless of the type of outcome measure (e.g., verbal, non-verbal, speed-related, etc.), participants’ age, and duration of training. Furthermore, we note that, beyond meta-analysis of experimental studies, a considerable amount of cross-sectional evidence indicates that engagement in music has no impact on people’s non-music cognitive skills or academic achievement. We conclude that researchers’ optimism about the benefits of music training is empirically unjustified and stems from misinterpretation of the empirical data and, possibly, confirmation bias.

This article establishes a new fact about educational production: ordinal academic rank during primary school has lasting impacts on secondary school achievement that are independent of underlying ability. Using data on the universe of English school students, we exploit naturally occurring differences in achievement distributions across primary school classes to estimate the impact of class rank. We find large effects on test scores, confidence, and subject choice during secondary school, even though these students have a new set of peers and teachers who are unaware of the students’ prior ranking in primary school. The effects are especially pronounced for boys, contributing to an observed gender gap in the number of Maths courses chosen at the end of secondary school. Using a basic model of student effort allocation across subjects, we distinguish between learning and non-cognitive skills mechanisms, finding support for the latter.

Social cognitive deficits can have many negative consequences, spanning social withdrawal to psychopathology. Prior work has shown that child maltreatment may associate with poorer social cognitive skills in later life. However, no studies have examined this association from early childhood into adolescence. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC; n = 4,438), we examined the association between maltreatment (caregiver physical or emotional abuse; sexual or physical abuse), assessed repeatedly (every 1–3 years) from birth to age 9, and social cognitive skills at ages 7.5, 10.5, and 14 years. We evaluated the role of both the developmental timing (defined by age at exposure) and accumulation of maltreatment (defined as the number of occasions exposed) using a least angle regression variable selection procedure, followed by structural equation modeling. Among females, accumulation of maltreatment explained the most variation in social cognitive skills. For males, no significant associations were found. These findings underscore the importance of early intervention to minimize the accumulation of maltreatment and showcase the importance of prospective studies to understand the development of social cognition over time.

We used self-report surveys to gather information on a broad set of non-cognitive skills from 1,368 eighth graders. At the student level, scales measuring conscientiousness, self-control, grit, and growth mindset are positively correlated with attendance, behavior, and test-score gains between fourth grade and eighth grade. Conscientiousness, self-control, and grit are unrelated to test-score gains at the school level, however, and students attending over-subscribed charter schools score lower on these scales than do students attending district schools. Exploiting admissions lotteries, we find positive impacts of charter school attendance on achievement and attendance but negative impacts on these non-cognitive skills. We provide suggestive evidence that these paradoxical results are driven by reference bias or the tendency for survey responses to be influenced by social context.

Families often face financial and geographical barriers to services for children with autism. The current study explored the effectiveness of a parent-supported adaptation of the computer game-based social skills program Secret Agent Society (SAS). Seventy child-parent dyads were randomized to SAS ( n  = 35) or a caregiver-supported cognitive skills training game (CIA—control comparison; n  = 35), both completed over 10 weeks. Child participants were on the autism spectrum and aged seven to 12 years (60 boys, 10 girls). SAS participants improved more than CIA participants on parent-rated social skills and problem behaviors and teacher-rated social skills. Findings suggest the intervention may be a convenient, cost-effective therapeutic approach, especially during times of restricted face-to-face service access, such as COVID-19.

In the current study, we investigated windows for enhanced learning of cognitive skills during adolescence. Six hundred thirty-three participants (11–33 years old) were divided into four age groups, and each participant was randomly allocated to one of three training groups. Each training group completed up to 20 days of online training in numerosity discrimination (i.e., discriminating small from large numbers of objects), relational reasoning (i.e., detecting abstract relationships between groups of items), or face perception (i.e., identifying differences in faces). Training yielded some improvement in performance on the numerosity-discrimination task, but only in older adolescents or adults. In contrast, training in relational reasoning improved performance on that task in all age groups, but training benefits were greater for people in late adolescence and adulthood than for people earlier in adolescence. Training did not increase performance on the face-perception task for any age group. Our findings suggest that for certain cognitive skills, training during late adolescence and adulthood yields greater improvement than training earlier in adolescence, which highlights the relevance of this late developmental stage for education.

Background Social cognition underpins our ability to maintain social connections, which in turn can reduce our risk of dementia. Existing social cognitive interventions for people living with mild cognitive impairment or early stage dementia involve either informal social gatherings or target only a single social cognitive skill, such as emotion recognition. There are therefore currently no interventions that target the broad range of social cognitive skills involved in maintaining social connections for people living with mild cognitive impairment or early‐stage dementia. Method A novel co‐designed social cognitive skills intervention was delivered online to 10 people (6 females and 4 males; Mage = 69 years, range = 58‐82 years) with mild cognitive impairment (n = 7) and early‐stage self‐reported dementia (n = 3). The intervention was delivered by a psychologist via videocalls with accompany slides and a participant booklet in groups of 3‐4 participants each, for five 2‐hour weekly sessions. Sessions included: awareness of everyday communication skills; development of a personal action plan and reading non‐verbal communication; managing sensory and cognitive challenges; real world interactions including assertiveness, confidence, building and maintaining good relationships; program review; and revisiting the personal action plan. Social cognition was measured using the Edinburgh Social Cognition Test (ESCoT). Secondary outcomes included cognition (MoCA), social frailty (social frailty index and social frailty scale), loneliness (UCLA loneliness scale), mental health (Geriatric Depression and Anxiety Scales), and quality of life (AQoL‐6D). Data were collected via online interviews at pre‐intervention, post‐intervention, and at 3‐month follow‐up. Result ESCoT scores improved 17% at the end of the intervention, with further improvement at 3‐months’ follow‐up (21.8%). Delayed recall scores on the MoCA also improved by 83% by 3‐month follow‐up. Mental health symptoms and loneliness scores showed a floor effect. Participants reported finding the online intervention easy to access. Conclusion A novel online group intervention for social cognitive skills showed promising results in a pilot study with people with mild cognitive impairment and early‐stage dementia. A randomised controlled trial with a larger sample is required to test the effectiveness of the intervention in improving social cognition.

Previous research has found that children who are born later in the academic year have lower educational attainment, on average, than children who are born earlier in the year, especially at younger ages; much less is known about the mechanisms that drive this inequality. The paper uses two complementary identification strategies to estimate an upper bound of the effect of age at test by using rich data from two UK birth cohorts. We find that differences in the age at which cognitive skills are tested accounts for the vast majority of the difference in these outcomes between children who are born at different times of the year, whereas the combined effect of the other factors (age of starting school, length of schooling and relative age) is close to zero. This suggests that applying an age adjustment to national achievement test scores may be an appropriate policy response to overcome the penalty that is associated with being born later in the academic year. Age at test does not, however, explain all of the difference in children's view of their own scholastic competence. Age adjusting national achievement test scores may help to overcome differences in ability beliefs between children who are born at different times of the year, but our results suggest that additional policy responses may be required.

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder associated with social cognitive challenges, and pretend play has been demonstrated as a tool to achieve developmental goals. Following previous report on feasibility and acceptability of a remote, play-based parent-training program (Zyga, Russ, & Dimitropoulos, 2018), we now report on preliminary efficacy of this program to enhance pretend play skills and social cognitive skills in preschoolers with PWS. Results across two studies demonstrated efficacy when live-coaching play sessions incorporated children into the intervention. Increases in play skills were observed for children with the mUPD subtype of PWS who underwent intervention, compared with children with mUPD who were waitlisted. Children with DEL subtype were less likely to respond to intervention. Implications for results are discussed.

Background The diagnostic criteria for atypical syndromes of Alzheimer's disease (AD) specify that episodic memory is relatively preserved at initial stages and may develop as the disease progresses. Memory deficits have been reported in posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), and logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA), despite these groups being referred to as “non‐amnestic”. The shared and dissociable patterns of memory impairment across atypical syndromes have not yet been clearly delineated. Method We tested 16 early‐onset (EOAD), 9 lvPPA, 21 PCA, and 29 cognitively normal (CN) participants with a novel object‐location memory test (OLMT) designed to foster deep learning and interrogate associative memory between objects and locations without lexical retrieval demands. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post‐hoc t‐tests were conducted to characterize between group performance. General linear models interrogated the association of atrophy in the default mode network with different stages of memory. Result All atypical AD variants demonstrated impaired encoding over three learning trials compared to CNs, with a positive learning curve. EOAD demonstrated greater storage loss compared to the other groups at 3‐minute delayed recognition (vs. PCA: t = 3.2, p = 0.002; vs. lvPPA: t = 3.1, p = 0.005) but comparable levels of impairment at 30‐minute delayed recognition (EOAD: z=‐4.4 ± 6.1; PCA: z=‐2.2 ± 3.6; lvPPA: z=‐1.2 ± 2.1). While the lvPPA group was able to effectively associate locations with objects and retain this association over time, other variants struggled with both encoding (EOAD: z=‐4.4 ± 6.1; PCA: z=‐2.2 ± 3.6) and retention (EOAD: z=‐4.4 ± 6.1; PCA: z=‐2.2 ± 3.6) of spatial locations over time. Medial temporal lobe atrophy was uniquely associated with object‐location associative binding and storage over time, but not object encoding alone. Conclusion All atypical AD syndromes demonstrated poor encoding and storage loss, adding to the characterization of memory impairment in atypical “non‐amnestic” AD. EOAD participants demonstrated faster storage loss compared to the other variants, potentially reflecting multidomain impairment. While PCA and lvPPA performed comparably on object memory, these groups were differentiated by location memory binding. Understanding the varied presentation of memory deficits in atypical syndromes can help inform accurate diagnosis and cognitive skills training to cope with neurodegenerative decline.