User:Kellypodesta/sandbox

Mindfulness - Education"While there is still research to be done to support the findings of mindfulness-based interventions (MBI’s) on young students, there is even less research on the effects of MBI’s on students with special education needs. However, the studies that have been conducted indicate similar findings as those with mainstream students – that school based mindfulness interventions can be effective with special education students’ in decreasing anxiety, increasing the ability to stay focused on a task, and helping with anger management . In a study by Felver et al., the students with special education needs were taught to simply redirect their attention to the feeling in the soles of their feet whenever they felt an oncoming increased emotional response. This simple intervention brought a decrease in aggressive behaviors, an increase in academic engagement, and even the special educators recommended this intervention due to its ease and cost effectiveness. Even though the initial findings of these MBI studies on special education students are producing the desired outcomes, their effects cannot be applied to all special education students due to their small sample sizes (ranging from 3-20 students) and due to their participants’ lack of cultural or racial diversity. More research needs to be done on school-based MBI’s for special education students with larger sample sizes and follow up’s to determine the long-term effects of these interventions. It is important to note that these studies have adopted a Westernized approach to mindfulness by exclusively focusing on how mindfulness can benefit the individual without then extending to how mindfulness can benefit the collective group."