Effects of Mindful Awareness Practices on Executive Functions in Elementary School Children

TLDR

Future studies should use neurocognitive tasks, behavioral observation, and diverse classroom samples to replicate and extend these preliminary findings. A randomized controlled study delivered 30‑minute mindful awareness sessions twice weekly for eight weeks to 64 second‑ and third‑grade children, with teachers and parents reporting executive function before and after. Children with poorer baseline executive function benefited most from the mindful awareness program, showing significant gains in behavioral regulation, metacognition, and overall executive control that were reported by both teachers and parents.

Abstract

A school-based program of mindful awareness practices (MAPs) was evaluated in a randomized control study of 64 second- and third-grade children ages 7–9 years. The program was delivered for 30 minutes, twice per week, for 8 weeks. Teachers and parents completed questionnaires assessing children's executive function immediately before and following the 8-week period. Multivariate analysis of covariance on teacher and parent reports of executive function (EF) indicated an interaction effect between baseline EF score and group status on posttest EF. That is, children in the MAPs group who were less well regulated showed greater improvement in EF compared with controls. Specifically, those children starting out with poor EF who went through the MAPs training showed gains in behavioral regulation, metacognition, and overall global executive control. These results indicate a stronger effect of MAPs on children with executive function difficulties. The finding that both teachers and parents reported changes suggests that improvements in children's behavioral regulation generalized across settings. Future work is warranted using neurocognitive tasks of executive functions, behavioral observation, and multiple classroom samples to replicate and extend these preliminary findings.