Start school later, sleep longer, learn better

High school students often have trouble getting to bed at a reasonable time, which makes it difficult for them to start school early in the morning. This is because teenagers are biologically wired to fall asleep later than adults, with their biological clock shifting progressively later throughout adolescence. The result is that most teenagers don’t get enough sleep on school days, and their sleep deficits increase as the week progresses.

“This is concerning, as chronic sleep deprivation not only affects well-being, but also has a measurable impact on mental health, physical development and the ability to learn,” says Oskar Jenni of the University of Zurich (UZH). According to Jenni, a developmental pediatrician, adolescent sleep biology prevents them from falling asleep early enough to meet their sleep need, so starting school later in the morning could have significant positive effects. While the impact of beginning the school day later has been well-studied internationally, there is currently a lack of research on flexible models that allow students to choose between an early and a later start.

New school model with flexible start and end times

Joëlle Albrecht, Reto Huber and Oskar Jenni from the University of Zurich and the University Children’s Hospital Zurich have now conducted research that provides scientific backing for school schedules that are better adapted to teenagers’ needs. Three years ago, the Gossau Upper Secondary School in the northeastern canton of St. Gallen introduced flexible school hours. Since then, students have had the option to attend modules before regular classes begin in the morning, at midday and in the afternoon. This means students decide when they start their school day: they can arrive at 7:30am or wait until 8:30am, when classes officially begin.

Using this model, the research team examined the sleep patterns of adolescents and the impact of sleep deprivation on their health and academic performance. The pupils, who were 14 years old on average, were surveyed once under the old school model, with a 7:20am start, and a second time a year later under the new model. The research team evaluated 754 responses in total.

Flexible school schedules allow for more sleep

The findings are unequivocal: 95% of students took advantage of the option to start school later – on average, 38 minutes later than under the old system. As a result, the teenagers were able to get up 40 minutes later in the morning. Because they continued to go to bed around the same time, their total amount of sleep increased: on school days, the students slept an average of 45 minutes longer.

There were also other advantages. “The students reported fewer problems falling asleep, and health-related quality of life increased ,” summarizes lead author Joëlle Albrecht. Under the new model, objective learning outcomes in English and mathematics improved compared to cantonal test results.

Improved health and academic performance

The study, published in the renowned Journal of Adolescent Health, shows that flexible school start times can be an effective and practical approach to reducing chronic sleep deprivation and improving adolescents’ mental health and academic performance. “Starting classes later in the morning can therefore significantly contribute to addressing the current mental health crisis among pupils,” adds co-author Reto Huber. In 2022, a study published by the Swiss Health Observatory (Obsan) found that 47% of 11- to 15-year-olds experienced multiple recurring or chronic psycho-affective complaints, such as sadness, fatigue, anxiety, low mood, tension, irritability, anger and difficulty falling asleep.

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DOI

10.1016/j.jadohealth.2026.01.011 

 

Play nicely: Children who are not friends connect better through play when given a goal

Getting children to play together cooperatively depends less on their personal social skills and more on what they are doing – especially if they are not friends – a study shows.

“Play nicely, children,” has been a familiar plea of stressed-out parents and teachers since time immemorial. Now, new research suggests that getting children to play together cooperatively may depend less on their social skills than the type of play involved – and who they are playing with.

In a new study, researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Sussex found that children who are not already friends play “in sync” with one another more when they are given a task to complete. Simply letting them play freely, by contrast, does not produce the same collaborative back-and-forth.

The research divided 148 children aged six to eight into pairs of friends and non-friends. Each pair completed two activities: an open-ended play session and a goal-directed drawing task, in which they had to work together to create a picture.

Researchers measured the children’s “connectedness” – how much children were talking about the same topic – to understand how far they cooperated, shared ideas and communicated coherently.

On average, connectedness rates were higher during the drawing task than when the children were playing freely. A closer look, however, revealed that the change occurred almost entirely among the non-friend pairs, whose connectedness during goal-directed play shot up by about 25%.

Dr Emily Goodacre, from the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Research Centre, University of Cambridge, said: “When I first saw the results, I thought: ‘This doesn’t make sense – why would this only happen among non-friends?’ The answer is probably that friends have shared experiences and an intuitive understanding of how to play together, but non-friends lack that familiarity and might benefit from being set a goal.”

“When we think about children’s development, we tend to look at the individual child – but more and more research is telling us to pay attention to who they are interacting with and the wider situation. This is important when thinking about education – especially issues like how to organise group activities in classrooms.”

Connected communication is important for social coordination. While many children will sit side-by-side using the same toys but essentially play alone, connectedness describes moments when they are actively coordinating their play. “Connectedness is partly about teamwork, but also about learning to negotiate with others and respond to somebody else’s feelings and needs,” Goodacre said.

Previous research by the PEDAL team has indicated that whether children connect during play has less to do with their individual socio-cognitive abilities than might be expected. The new study investigated this further, using data gathered in five UK schools.

Each child was asked to identify their three best friends. They were then organised into a mix of friend and non-friend pairings.

The researchers videoed them playing in two different ways. First, the children were given a Playmobil treehouse toy set and asked to play however they wished. Next, the researchers gave them a drawing of a tree-trunk and asked them to turn it into a picture of the treehouse. Because they only had one pad and a few colouring pens, the children had to work together to complete the drawing.

The team analysed the recording for passages of connected talk – moments when children said something linked to what the other child had said. Each pair was given a connectedness score: a percentage measure of the rate of connected conversation.

Across the entire group, the average rate of connected talk rose by about four percentage points – a statistically significant amount – during the drawing task. When the researchers dug into this further, however, they found that it was almost entirely because the non-friends’ connectedness score jumped from 44% to 55%. Among friends, the rate of connected talk was almost identical: 48% during free play and 50% during goal-directed play.

This does not necessarily mean that friends were less collaborative. Close friends may rely more on non-verbal cues or a shared sense of how to play together, meaning that the goal-directed task did not substantially alter their communication patterns.

Anecdotally, Goodacre said the difference was clear in the recordings. Conversations between non-friends were often more functional and less excitable or creative, but the shared goal encouraged them to listen and respond to one another.

“Children who are already friends can play and do things together in lots of different contexts,” Goodacre said. “On the other hand, if a teacher or parent wants children who aren’t friends to collaborate, a shared goal may help them communicate more effectively. They may need more support to play together than simply giving them toys and asking them to play nicely.”

The findings are published in the journal Infant and Child Development (DOI: 10.1002/icd.70089).

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Journal

Infant and Child Development

DOI

10.1002/icd.70089 

Identifying children at risk of speech disorders

Researchers have developed a tool for identifying children at risk of speech disorders, reducing unnecessary treatment for common speech errors that often resolve on their own.  

The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne and published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, identifies red flags to help guide speech therapy referrals. Additionally, the data confirms for the first time in more than two decades that speech errors are common and vary widely up to six years of age.

For the study, 1179 participants aged 2-12 years were recruited from schools, childcare centres and kindergartens across Victoria and NSW. Trained speech and language therapists assessed children using a picture naming task.

It found developmental speech errors was common in children aged two to six, but by seven years 90 per cent could form all sounds. Only minor differences in speech were seen between eight and 12 years. Disordered speech errors that occurred in less than 10 per cent of children included vowel errors, transpositions such as ‘efelant’ for elephant and mixing up speech sounds such as ‘glack’ for black.

Compared with historical data from 20 years ago, some sounds were acquired more slowly and some common errors took longer to resolve. Importantly, there was no evidence that children’s speech had become more disordered.

MCRI Professor Angela Morgan said despite speech disorders being an increasing challenge for paediatricians, there was limited evidence to guide detection and referrals for those at risk of persistent problems.

“The lack of research forces a trial-and-error approach, which can result in critical resources being wrongly directed,” she said. “This is compounded by the absence of any official English speech data being published for over two decades. New data is also needed to find out how new technologies, like phones and devices, are changing children's speech.”  

MCRI Dr Daisy Shepherd said the large representative study provided a much-needed updated description and understanding of speech performance. 

Professor Morgan said the new assessment tool would ensure fewer children were incorrectly assigned to wait lists and less resources wasted on treating speech error patterns that were likely to resolve in time.

“We found lots of young children can struggle to pick up speech correctly, which may explain why so many families seek support for speech development in the preschool years,” she said. “Furthermore, our data suggests speech is mastered more slowly and common errors are taking longer to outgrow compared with previous generations.  

“Our tool identifies the children experiencing the most difficulty within their age group using speech tasks and will support healthcare professionals to improve detection and referral for disordered speech errors.”

Isla, 9, has childhood apraxia of speech, a rare speech disorder that hinders the brain's ability to plan and co-ordinate the muscle movements necessary for clear speech.

Mum Sheree said Isla was referred to speech therapy at about two years of age after she failed to meet early developmental milestones.

“Isla’s speech was delayed, she wasn’t babbling like babies do and had difficulty starting or transitioning between sounds or words,” she said. “Luckily at the time, Isla was already seeing a pediatrician who was able to refer us to a speech clinic. Despite acting on it quickly, we still had to wait another four months to see a therapist.” 

Sheree said the speech therapy had made a significant difference.

“Isla knows what she wants to say in her head, but sometimes her mouth has trouble saying the words clearly and consistently,” she said.

“Her speech difficulty has a huge effect on her confidence. When she was younger, Isla often gave up on talking and relied on non-verbal communication including gestures so others could understand her.

“But with the help of therapy Isla is now better understood, and family and friends have noticed the huge progress in her speech, she has come a long way.”

Sheree said the tool developed by MCRI researchers would be of enormous help to families and healthcare workers.

“We know so many families with children who have apraxia of speech who weren’t able to access early support,” she said. “Their GPs didn’t refer them to a speech therapist when symptoms first appeared, thinking the child would eventually catch up with their peers.

“On top of that, long wait lists and finding the right therapist fit for your family only adds to the delays. Children with speech disorders have to be incredibly resilient but they need early intervention to make sure they can thrive.”

Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Redenlab also contributed to the study.

Publication: Daisy Shepherd, Olivia van Reyk, Adam P Vogel, Simone deBono, Charlotte Boulton, Ashleigh Hill, Tully Coldrey, Francesca Coles and Angela Morgan. ‘Red flags for speech impairment: who should we refer to speech therapy?’

Archives of Disease in Childhood. DOI: 10.1136

Adolescent social health may foretell loneliness, aggressive behavior,

 

Teens who are lonely and those who experience conflict in their home life are more likely to act aggressively toward peers or become victims themselves. These are some of the findings in a new University of California, Davis, study that creates a detailed picture of children’s social lives by identifying patterns and predictors of adolescent social health.  

“Because new peer relationships are a key characteristic of the teenage years, assessing this developmental period is crucial for understanding social health at its foundation,” said Myles N. Arrington, the study’s lead author and a post-doctoral fellow at the Teen Experiences, Emotions & Neurodevelopment (TEEN) Lab at UC Davis.

The study was published this month in the journal Developmental Psychology. Co-authors, all from UC Davis, include Adrienne Nishina, professor and chair of human ecology; Camelia E. Hostinar, associate professor of psychology; and Amanda E. Guyer, professor of human ecology and principal investigator at the TEEN Lab in the Center for Mind and Brain.

Prior research has shown that teens who have positive relationships tend to have better mental health in adulthood and even manage negative stress better. In this study, researchers have expanded the understanding of teens’ social lives by looking at multiple variables of teens’ social health. This may help future research uncover ways to improve their social health, researchers said. 

Key drivers of social health 

Social health — a way to describe whether people have enough meaningful relationships to meet their social and emotional needs — can be especially difficult for teens, researchers said. This is a time when youth are vulnerable to loneliness and social disconnection, according to the study.  

In the study, researchers analyzed 2016-2021 data collected from 10,050 adolescents from 10 to 13 years old. The data was obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, a large-scale study on brain development and child health supported by the National Institutes of Health. Researchers focused on early adolescence, when youth form many of the friendships that define their social health. 

Researchers identified three social profiles that grouped teens by a mix of factors that included their number of friends, who was in their friend group, and how much conflict they had with peers. The analysis found that teens described as “lonely” were less likely to have a high number of friends and were more likely to be aggressive. They were also more likely to be victims of aggression.  

Family conflict also was associated with high levels of both aggression and victimization in the study. Active conflict played a much stronger role than prior conflict.

Boys and girls showed differences in their social profiles. Girls were more likely to have fewer friends than boys. On the other hand, boys were much more likely to be aggressive with their peers or to be victims of peer aggression. 

“It’s important to consider multiple variables together to accurately characterize social health during adolescence,” said Guyer. “These findings are an important step in identifying the various facets of how adolescents begin to build close relationships with peers.”

The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, both part of the National Institutes of Health.

 

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Journal

Developmental Psychology

DOI

10.1037/dev0002139 

Evaluating multiple candidates simultaneously improves promotions for Black /Hispanic faculty

 

After years of research, teaching, and service, a faculty member's tenure and future in academia hinge on the evaluations of their peers — senior faculty who serve on promotion and tenure committees. These evaluations can make or break a career — deciding whether a faculty member continues to grow in their field or faces an abrupt halt in their career. 

On the surface, this decision-making process presents as meritocratic. However, researchers and commentators have questioned this. While there are claims that modern academia is structured to disadvantage White faculty (e.g., “The Lost Generation” article by Jacob Savage), empirical evidence shows the opposite, with Black and Hispanic faculty being judged more harshly in promotion and tenure decisions. This has spurred calls for reforms to the promotion system in academia to improve the validity of the process and address the longstanding underrepresentation of Black and Hispanic individuals in tenured faculty positions, who comprise 31% of the US population but only 11% of faculty.

A new paper published by Nature Communications says joint evaluation, i.e., evaluating multiple candidates simultaneously instead of separately, is a potential solution. Study results show that this structural change to the decision-making process increases Black and Hispanic faculty members’ promotion chances by 16.2% and effectively eliminates racial disparities in voting at the department level.

The research team led by psychology Professor Christiane Spitzmueller at the University of California, Merced and hospitality management Professor Juan Madera at the University of Houston examined promotion and tenure decisions for 1,804 candidates from 2015-2022. 

The team previously documented racial inequities in promotion and tenure in a 2024 paper published in Nature Human Behaviour. However, “identifying bias is not good enough, we need to find ways to redesign decision-making processes to achieve more equitable outcomes”, Spitzmueller said. “Our goal with this work was to leverage advances in decision making research to see how disadvantage and bias can be reduced in easily implementable ways,” Juan Madera added

To do so, the authors leveraged a natural experiment, a powerful design for inferring causality in real-world datasets. It compared promotion candidates evaluated simultaneously with other candidates (i.e., joint evaluation) vs. candidates evaluated individually (i.e., separate evaluation). The results found that joint evaluation significantly reduced the negative votes received by Black and Hispanic promotion candidates and narrowed the gap in negative voting percentage compared to White and Asian candidates from 10% in separate evaluation to 1% in joint evaluation. 

This finding is aligned with past research on the benefits of joint evaluation as an “evaluation nudge” to improve decision-making. However, this is the first paper to demonstrate the benefits of this nudge in improving racial equity in high-stakes career decisions. Moreover, this paper answers past calls for the integration of nudge approaches, i.e., changes to the decision environment, into the academic personnel process.

In a period in which past approaches to address racial equity in academia and organizations have come under fire for their limited effectiveness and for sometimes inducing backlash such as “debiasing training” joint evaluation offers an alternative approach. As noted by Theodore C. Masters-Waage, the first author on the paper, the findings of this paper demonstrate that “racial biases can be addressed by changing the environment in which a decision is made.” This approach is advantageous as it avoids placing the full blame on specific individuals for causing racial bias and instead attributes some of it to environmental conditions.

The evaluation nudge used in this study provides a viable, low-cost change to evaluation and advancement systems that will improve equity and diversity of faculty, and maximize student learning and innovation outcomes. Switching to joint evaluations and cluster hiring methods will ensure that institutions abide by their policies and promote a fair decision-making process, while also shifting faculty's prior beliefs about joint evaluations. 

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-69937-5 

Comparing States’ Standards for Proficient Performance in Reading and Mathematics Grades 4 and 8

 

This Mapping Report Compares States’ Standards for Proficient Performance in Reading and Mathematics for Students in Grades 4 and 8 Using the National Assessment of Educational Progress Achievement Scales

In 2022, most state standards for proficient performance in reading and mathematics for grades 4 and 8 mapped at the NAEP Basic achievement level. The National Center for Education Statistics report, Mapping State Proficiency Standards onto the NAEP Scales: Results From the 2022 NAEP Reading and Mathematics Assessments, compared the NAEP scale scores equivalent to each state standard for proficient performance in grades 4 and 8 reading and mathematics. The results showed: In 2022, most state standards for proficient performance for both grades and subjects mapped at or above the NAEP Basic achievement level. For states with all three years of data in 2022, 2019, and 2013, the differences between the states with highest and lowest standards were larger in 2022 compared to 2019 in grade 4 reading and grade 8 mathematics, and smaller in grade 4 mathematics (no measurable difference in grade 8 reading across these years). In all grades and subjects (except grade 8 mathematics), the differences were smaller in 2022 than in 2013. The standard for proficient performance for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium in both subjects and grades mapped at the NAEP Basic level. The report, the ninth in the series, used student achievement results from state and NAEP assessments administered in 2022. To view the full forthcoming report, please visit: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/statemapping/ The Data Tool will be updated soon to include the 2022 results.

Implementing Effective Mathematics Intervention Practices for Elementary Students

 

The Institute of Education Sciences released the Mathematics Intervention Toolkit to support educators in implementing the recommendations from the What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Intervention in the Elementary Grades. The toolkit helps educators and leaders address a pressing need to provide effective interventions for students struggling with mathematics in grades 3–6. The toolkit includes: A professional learning course with six modules to build educators’ knowledge and use of evidence-based mathematics intervention practices with students. The introductory module introduces the course and the practice guide’s recommendations. The next five modules each focus in depth on one recommendation: Mathematical Language, Representations, Number Lines, Word Problems, and Systematic Instruction. The modules include online learning sessions, professional learning community (PLC) sessions, classroom videos, strategy demonstration videos, and instructional routines. The participant workbooks include example strategies, practical teaching suggestions, activity handouts, and ready-to-use resources for classroom implementation. Facilitator resources to help district-based facilitators lead PLC sessions that engage teachers in learning about the recommendations, trying related strategies, preparing to use instructional routines, and sharing teaching experiences. The resources include comprehensive facilitator guides and slide decks with presenter notes. Resources for district mathematics leaders and other administrators to help them plan for and implement the professional learning modules with educators and support educators’ use of the recommended strategies with students. These comprehensive, high-quality resources support educators and leaders in learning about, planning, and implementing effective mathematics interventions for students to improve learning outcomes. To access the toolkit, please visit https://ies.ed.gov/regional-educational-laboratories-toolkits.