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In the last 10 years, there has been a growing interest in applying knowledge about the functioning of the human brain to the field of education including reading, writing, and mathematics. On the other hand, recent advances in neuroscience highlight connections between emotion, social functioning, and decision-making. In particular, the neurobiological evidence suggests that social skills, decision-making abilities, and some aspects of cognition related to self-regulated learning, such as executive functions, are deeply affected and subsumed within the processes of emotion. There are, however, different positions, which we will try to summarize, about how to bridge neuroscientific data and theory with educational practices and strategies in the classroom. Indeed, there is an important gap between the inner workings of the brain – which is the level of neuroscience, where various aspects of biology, physiology, and chemistry are concerned with the structure, organization, and development of the brain as a physical organism – and the practical application of knowledge about human behavior to promote effective teaching and learning, which is the field of education. Finally, we will present some results of our research on the effect of executive functions and IQ on mathematical skills such as number production, mental calculus, and arithmetical problems. We will present also results on the role of executive functions on written composition, as well as how the problems in affective developmental affect cognitive and school performance.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-95360-1_23

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