CONVERGENCE OF TWO INDEPENDENT ROADS LEADS TO COLLABORATION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND NEUROSCIENCE.

Collaboration is the foundation for innovative discoveries, as individuals with different backgrounds come together and combine their unique expertise. In the current article, an educational researcher and two neuroscientists relate their experiences in establishing a successful collaborative effort. The marriage of neuroscientific findings with educational research has begun to further advance educational approaches. Initial functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) findings indicate that direct interplay between educational interventions and brain-based measures of sensory, motor, and cognitive processes provides an important link among cognitive processing and psychometric measures. If neuroimaging results support existing theoretical constructs of brain organization, then testable hypotheses may be designed to determine which educational interventions will be effective. The neuropsychological approach may provide school psychologists and teachers with an extensive array of fMRI-based, developmentally appropriate instructional strategies for enhancing the functional organization of the developing brain of children. Promising suggestions and strategies for educational researchers, school psychologists, and neuroscientists are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]